The Death Trust

October 29, 2007
Aussie author Rollins’s first novel is a fast-moving, funny thriller with a smart-aleck hero who faces death and worse with a quip on his lips. Military special investigator Maj. Vincent Cooper bounds around the world, dodging death while searching for the reason a four-star general and his son were murdered—a nifty bit of evil that goes all the way to the White House—and encounters grouchy Germans, ruthless and sexy Russians, world-weary Italians, stoned Canadians and, not surprisingly, heroic Australians. The accents, attitudes and genders pose no problem for Foster, who handles them with brisk efficiency. He understands that, with a yarn involving a protagonist who suffers beatings, bullets and broken bones, but keeps plugging away at a global conspiracy with more layers than an artichoke, to pause for an elaborate shift in accent is to risk close scrutiny of the story. Instead, with subtle vocal shifts he’s able to set a breathless pace, keeping the listener on board the roller coaster until it comes to a complete, satisfying stop. Simultaneous release with the Bantam hardcover (Reviews, Aug. 13).

August 13, 2007
Australian Rollins (Rogue Element
) introduces a tough, wisecracking hero in his U.S. debut. When Gen. Abraham Scott—CO of Ramstein Air Base in Germany and son-in-law of the U.S. vice president—dies in a suspicious glider incident, Maj. Vincent Cooper, an agent of the U.S.A.F. Office of Special Investigations, gets the call. Recently divorced and drinking to excess, Vin knows his job is on the line as he travels to Germany to work with Special Agent Anna Masters. The two of them put together a case that grows to encompass an ever-widening ring of murders and takes them, in a particularly harrowing scene, to Baghdad. A shadowy international organization known as the Establishment appears to be behind the mayhem, and in the process of figuring out the group’s motives, the intrepid Vin gets beaten up, blown up, set on fire and shot a couple of times. Readers will look forward to more of Vin’s exploits in his next outing, A Knife Edge
.

Starred review from October 1, 2007
Conspiracy aficionados are going to love Australian author Rollins's thriller, his third novel but the first to be released in the United States. It's a real page-turner pitting OSI investigator Maj. Vincent (Vin) Cooper against shadowy forces that kill anyone who gets in the way. Investigating the accidental death of Gen. Abraham Scott, the son-in-law of the Vice President of the United States, leads Vin to a bloody ambush in Baghdad, a sex club in Riga, Latvia, and ultimately the Vice President's parlor in Washington, DC. Sure, the book is a white-knuckle read on a par with anything that James Patterson or Nelson DeMille might offer, but the insights into what drives world politics (for example, the war in Iraq) are so plausible and well thought out that the reader may come away with a feeling that it's all realonly the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Highly recommended for popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 6/1/07.]Ken St. Andre, Phoenix P.L.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2007
Rollins first novel, published to deserved acclaim in Australia in 2005, begins with a one-two punch. In Iraq, a U.S. Army sergeant is gunned down by a sniper; not long after, in Germany, the sergeants father is piloting a glider when the aircraft suddenly falls to pieces in midair. Was this a coincidence, or has someone targeted father and son? In charge of the case is Special Agent Vin Cooper, of the Office of Special Investigationsrecently divorced and looking for something to distract him from the ruins of his personal life. The novels story will be familiar to many readers (it involves a conspiracy at the White House), but Cooperis such an appealing narrator that seeing the story through his eyes is like seeing it afresh. Many thriller writers dive right into the action, but Rollins sneaks up on the story, takes it nice and slow, as though he is writing a police procedural rather than a thriller. Definitely a few cuts above most political-conspiracy yarns.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)