The rocket-propelled fourth installment in Robert Ludlum's Treadstone series starring Adam Hayes. The American presence in Afghanistan is crumbling fast. The Taliban is rapidly taking control, with help from some corrupt Americans. Ex--Navy SEAL Dominic Porter has made a tidy sum by stealing American military equipment and selling it to the enemy. Now it's time for him to go home and put this all behind him, and he wants to cover his tracks by killing everyone he has ever done business with. "All that remained was covering up the evidence," he muses, "burying the haji bastards who knew what he'd done." But he notices a witness taking a video of one of his crimes, and if it becomes public, he will be imprisoned or worse. Then ex-Treadstone operative Adam Hayes receives a desperate plea for help from Abdul Nassim, who'd taken the video and knows he's being hunted. Nassim had saved Hayes' life 10 years ago, and now it's time to return the favor. Luckily, Hayes is a man of honor, skill, and bravery, and he will stop at nothing to save his friend and his family. Desperate for assistance, Hayes begs a favor from an unfriendly Treadstone contact: "He's being hunted, Levi. By Americans. One of us." You can bet that Treadstone favor will come at a cost. Oh, and there's a thumb drive with a terabyte of data that Porter will kill to get. Guess who has it? Meanwhile, Porter has been dealing with the bloodthirsty Taliban commander Mohammed Ghul, who seems like he's willing to kill just about anybody. He's a ghoul, all right. In the best tradition of military thrillers, the story is one damn thing after another--plenty of intense action interspersed with fear and anticipation. The novel captures a sense of the deep chaos wrenching Afghanistan as American forces departed and the troops they tried so hard to train disappeared into the desert. First-class excitement for thriller fans. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Set in 2021, Hood's hard-hitting fourth contribution to this spin-off series from the late Ludlum's Jason Bourne franchise (after 2022's The Treadstone Transgression) finds Adam Hayes, no longer an operative for the CIA unit Treadstone, working as a private security contractor in Mumbai, where he gets a call from Abdul Nassim, the Afghan army captain who saved his life 10 years earlier. Nassim has evidence--a photograph and a thumb drive--that an American CIA paramilitary officer, Dominic Porter, has been selling American weapons to the Taliban, but Porter is on to Nassim and will kill him and his wife and three children if Hayes can't get them all out of Afghanistan fast. Hayes heads into the chaos of the Afghanistan war's final days on an against-all-odds rescue mission. Because he's no longer allied with Treadstone, he's on his own, and it's a long grueling battle from beginning to end as he's pitted against the treasonous Porter as well as the deadly commander of the Taliban elite Blood Unit. Treadstone fans will get their money's worth. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune. (Apr.)