BOB HAMER

BOOKS

Novels about undercover FBI agents nabbing terrorists are more credible when written by former FBI agents. Hamer’s nearly three decades as a street agent gives weight to this thriller about erstwhile reckless agent Matt Hogan’s redemption with the agency, his wife, and guilt-ridden past. In order to save his job, Hogan must leave his dangerous operations and infiltrate a Christian hospital, which he sees as a red herring to get him off the streets. But as the hospital is suspected of helping terrorists, Hogan has never had a more important assignment. Beyond thriller-speed action, the author includes references to Osama bin Laden, reflections on the difference between guilt and shame societies, and just enough hot married love for Christian fiction. Suspense is often pre-empted by unnecessary spoilers in the middle of the action: Fate was about to confront the team. Otherwise few flaws mar what is a page-turning roller coaster that feels like Jack Bauer’s 24 without sailing over the top. Stereotype-bending dialogue and believable characters elicit fear of evil and call forth hope that good exists in all ethnicities and religions.
- From Publishers Weekly

There have been many books concerning FBI undercover agents on perilous assignments, but this one by a veteran FBI agent goes most of them one better with his full-tilt voyages into the darkest fringes of society. After his training and recruitment into the criminal netherworld, Hamer assumed several identities—such as drug dealer and contract killer—to penetrate the closed societies of the Chinese, Russian and Iraqi mobs. However, Hamer’s controlled theatrics are most compelling as he infiltrates the security-obsessed North American Man/Boy Love Association disguised as an aging pedophile, to crack the group and their extensive international network. The sneak peek into that dank society of chicken hawks is illuminating in its depiction of child sexual abuse. With his practiced lies and disciplined behavior, Hamer is a peerless undercover agent, although his book sometimes breaks its narrative focus and wanders into several cases at once. Still, this book possesses power and conviction without being pretentious or pious.
- From Publishers Weekly