Rogue Asset

July 1, 2021

When the secretary of state is kidnapped from his Cairo hotel, President Natalie Cohen decides to revive the Presidential Agent program, calling Charley Castillo out of retirement to help. Charley is directing an agent fondly nicknamed Killer McCoy, and together they head to Egypt and thence to Sudan. U.S. Navy veterans Andrews and Wilson doing Griffin in contemporary mode.

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October 18, 2021
Fans of bestseller W.E.B. Griffin (1929–2019) will welcome the return of Griffin’s hero C.G. “Charley” Castillo—last seen in 2013’s Hazardous Duty, when he was an Army colonel—in the capable ninth Presidential Agent novel by Andrews and Wilson (coauthors of the Tier One series). When secretary of state Frank Malone is kidnapped while attending a Middle East summit in Cairo, President Natalie Cohen responds by reactivating the Presidential Agent program. She calls Castillo, the original Presidential Agent
, out of retirement and asks him to take charge of the mission to rescue Malone. The hitch is he’ll be helped by U.S. Marine Corps Capt. P.K. “Pick” McCoy Jr., who’s slated to become the next Presidential Agent. Bored with sitting on his front porch, Charley accepts the mission, but he’s less than enthusiastic about his role as trainer to the man who’ll be taking his job. If the main plot follows predictable lines, Andrews and Wilson supply plenty of credible action in the Griffin mold, while the mentoring subplot provides extra interest. Readers will look forward to how the succession angle is handled in the sequel. Agent: Mel Berger, WME.

November 1, 2021
There's red-hot action from the get-go in the ninth novel in the late W.E.B. Griffin's newly revived Presidential Agent series. In Cairo, terrorists murder the U.S. ambassador and kidnap Secretary of State Frank Malone, delivering a clear message that the U.S. can't protect its own. They hold him for ransom and to gain power for themselves in Sudan, where they have spirited him. Oddly, the terrorists' real goal is to get Sudan removed from the state sponsor of terror list. President Natalie Cohen will have none of this and decides to reinstate the secret Presidential Agent Program and bring the 57-year-old black ops asset Carlos "Charley" Guillermo Castillo out of retirement. He's paired with much younger Marine Raiders Capt. P.K. "Pick" McCoy, who will train in the field to one day be the next Presidential Agent. As expected, there is the old guy-young guy conflict: Is the kid too green?versus Can the old fart keep up with me?Castillo promises the president he'll bring Malone home, but it won't be easy. A whole lot of bad guys will have to take a bullet, and McCoy proves himself more than up to the task. While Castillo is still the best at what he does, his Marine understudy is a "one-man killing machine" and a "one-man annihilation machine" given to "Captain America bullshit." And speaking of bovine droppings, he amuses a CIA spook by insisting that he is not a killer. "Being good at killing isn't what makes you a killer...I take no joy in it." Oh right, like he hates his job. But the duo seems to take it in stride when "body parts, hot and wet, rained down on them." Meanwhile, President Cohen hopes that Charley Castillo and his "Merry Outlaws" will show terrorists what happens when you mess with the United States of America. So don't mind all the blood; it mostly comes from the other guys. A kick-ass thriller from start to finish.

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