The Colonel

A former pilot who knows his way around the corridors of power on Capitol Hill as well as the Pentagon, Patrick Davis spins a believable yarn about the murder of an Air Force safety officer just before she was about to blow the whistle on a fatal defect in a popular airplane. Originally built for the Air Force, the G-626 accounts for nearly a quarter of the world's passenger fleet, but Colonel Margaret Wildman's evidence would have grounded it and destroyed a billion-dollar merger between Boeing and Global, the flawed plane's manufacturer. Martin Collins, a retired Air Force investigator who consults on military homicides, doesn't want to believe his service was involved in the death of the colonel and her two young children, but everything points to Wildman's immediate superior, Marcus Holland, who may have been acting on orders from higher up in the chain of command.

With a young special investigator who's got her own score to settle with Holland, and Simon Santos, an enigmatic detective whose wealth gives him entrée to the highest levels of military and political influence, Martin finds himself in a world of deals and deal makers even Simon can't access. Davis's skillful pacing drives the narrative to a surprising and explosive denouement, but long before that his complex and well-developed protagonists engage the reader's interest and empathy. Simon's past holds a secret that's the clue to his determination to solve this cloudy and complicated case, and Martin is still grieving his dead wife and trying to find his way as a single parent. The Colonel is a strong, muscular thriller that confirms Davis's promise as a writer to watch. --Jane Adams