The Judas Gate »

Jack Higgins lives on Jersey in the Channel Islands.

Treachery has a price in the mesmerizing new thriller from the New York Times-bestselling writer.

A disturbing tape has made its way to British intelligence, and from them to the new President of the United States: battlefield chatter from an ambush in Afghanistan, in which twelve U.S. Army Rangers and a British medical team died. Most of the Taliban voices are Afghan, but not all of them-the voice of the commander bears an Irish accent. The idea that one of their own could be responsible for such a massacre is appalling, and Sean Dillon is put in charge of hunting down the traitor. But Dillon has his own way of doing things and, he will eventually discover, so does his quarry. Dillon will not only be going to war-the war will be coming to him.

Publishers Weekly

The massacre of 12 U.S. Army Rangers and a British medical team in Afghanistan reveals that an Irishman, code-named Shamrock, is applying IRA tactics to the Taliban's struggle against the West in Higgins's less than satisfying 18th Sean Dillon thriller (after The Wolf at the Door). Fearful that British-born Muslims may be heeding the call to jihad, officials employ Daniel Holley, a former IRA terrorist turned arms dealer, whose rich network of contacts may allow him to track down the elusive Shamrock. Since the well-connected Shamrock's own sources have alerted him that Holley is on his tail, Holley and his allies soon find themselves targeted by the very people they were supposed to neutralize. Fortunately for Holley, Shamrock, whose skills should have made him a close match for Holley, proves an inept foe. Nearly every move against the invincible Holley is foredoomed, and only minor characters are ever in true peril, robbing the book of dramatic tension. (Jan.)