Missions

"Just how I like my thrillers." -San Francisco Book Review

Fast-paced and intelligent, Missions plunges readers back into the formative days of the new war that changed a generation. An explosion in the heart of Paris launches an international investigation that propels Doyle O'Gara, a computer scientist at a technology supplier to the CIA, from the periphery of the emerging conflict into its moral command center. As the suspense-filled investigation leaps from one surprising clue to the next, O'Gara hurtles toward a disastrous miscalculation and a moral dilemma that tests him and the country he serves. 

The resurgence of Islamic jihad has inspired several best-selling novels, but Missions delves more deeply than most into the dark recesses of the human spirit that permits a select few to murder in the name of God or politics. These new enemies emerge not as cardboard background villains but as complex personalities fighting for causes that they believe justify their crimes. 

With equal candor, Missions probes the corrosive effects such crimes may have on the liberal values of a free society. Minor errors in the translation of intercepted messages, combined with Doyle O'Gara's silence during a critical meeting with the CIA, lead the investigation awry as French and American authorities rush to prevent a second attack. When O'Gara confronts the consequences of his mistakes in a Marseille hospital burn ward and faces criminal charges back home, he must confront haunting questions about his personal responsibility while fighting his nation's battle. 

This exciting debut novel by international business lawyer Marc McGuire will appeal to lovers of thought-provoking political thrillers.