Beyond Top Secret

by Rob Lubitz

Overview

Ryan Butler holds a dark CIA secret. He has kept quiet for fifteen years, working as an attorney in Arizona and lying about his past to everyone, including his live-in girlfriend, Maya. But after a string of bizarre murders and the events of September 11, 2001, his fabricated world slowly begins to unravel.

When his former lover, Alana Shannon, kills her husband, Ryan realizes that only his secret can save her. But there is a problem: he has no clue that plans are already in the works to use the same secret to destroy Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. After he teams with a tabloid reporter and a defense attorney, Ryan fights to prove Alana’s innocence amid fierce resistance from shadowy government forces. Against a backdrop of escalating violence and deceit, Ryan and Alana rekindle their lost love, sending them down a perilous path where they face an agonizing choice with the power to change their lives and alter the war on terrorism.

In this espionage thriller, one man who risks everything to divulge a long-held secret and save the woman he loves from a disturbing fate is about to discover that nothing is ever certain in an uncertain world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491757741
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	02/03/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	328
Sales rank:	904,632
File size:	353 KB

Editorial Reviews

2015-04-06
In Lubitz's (Breaking Free, 2011) thriller, a woman's trial for murder puts numerous people in danger when it threatens to expose a covert government assassination.Wilhelm Kronig, the former CIA deputy director, is determined to keep quiet about a buried 1969 experiment for a potent hypnotic drug. But 9/11 changes his mind. He tells the agency how to recover the supposedly destroyed formula and suggests using it for a black op to assassinate Osama bin Laden. Recently, however, participants from said experiment have killed their families and themselves on the day of their 60th birthdays. This doesn't bode well for Alana Shannon, who shot hubby Steve in self-defense but can't explain why he went gunning for her. She and an old flame, Environmental Protection Agency attorney Ryan Butler, know a little about the drug due to their involvement in a 1986 incident, which the CIA covered up. But building a legal defense based on that classified information is something the CIA won't allow—even if it means making sure the witnesses don't make it to trial. As the story progresses, Lubitz's rapid-paced novel maintains suspense by sprinkling information like colors dabbled on the canvas of a slowly forming portrait. Much of the info is imparted by characters who, like Ryan, are reluctant or afraid to reveal everything at one time, so scenes are comprised largely of mere dialogue exchanges rather than action. Yet this doesn't hold up the novel in the least, thanks to Lubitz's intelligent writing and the story's fresh, contemporary villains. Physical assaults or threats, for example, simply aren't necessary when a well-spoken CIA agent can tell Ryan how easily the agency could frame him for treason. There's likewise an ever present but veiled threat: computers or evidence go missing, while those people relevant to the trial either disappear or meet unfortunate accidents. This is the second book to feature Ryan and Alana, and Lubitz drops enough hints surrounding the 1986 event—in which Ryan killed a man to save Alana—to pique interest for his prior novel without spoiling or regurgitating the story. The coda goes on for a bit too long, but there's an exhaustive wrap-up that includes elaborating on the birthday homicides and the ongoing bin Laden operation.Smart and sleek as the secrets slowly spill out.

Kirkus Reviews