Shopping, bombs and terror

The seventh book in Alex Kava's Maggie O'Dell series, about an FBI profiler.

After reading "Exposed" earlier this year, I quickly got into Alex Kava and read four of her novels in a row. I wasn't expecting to get to read the seventh one in the O'Dell series so soon.... 

On the busiest shopping day of the year, a small group of idealistic students enter a shopping centre in America carrying concealed devices they believe will cause chaos at the checkouts. At the nation's largest shopping centre, the results are incendiary - and people lie dead. A white-collar lobby group called Citizens for American Pride takes responsibility for the protest action, calling for an end to cheap, foreign-made goods and exported manufacturing jobs. But they insist the bombing was the work of rogue members, zealots who took the message too far. As Maggie and her team sift through the debris and the facts of the case, they uncover paranoia, racism and a sinister secret agenda that extends to the highest ranks of the CAP. Maggie must find a way to stop their next attack, even though the cost to her could be huge. If she fails, more innocent people will pay with their lives.

As with all of Kava's other books, the story moves along at a really fast pace, and there are plenty of twists and turns along the way. I finished this book in a little over 24 hours (the joys of being on holiday with lots of time to read). As with previous books in the series, there are some more clever references to real-life American crimes woven in too. If you're not up on your US/world affairs, these may pass you by.

All in all it's another pretty good read and fans of Patterson, Deaver, Connelly et al will certainly enjoy it. Some of the loose ends from the previous book are tied up (to some extent at least) so you might get a bit confused if you've not read others in the series.

I'm continuing my quest to read all of the others in the series as well as the stand alone books. Alex Kava is a very good thriller writer.