Not since Tom Clancy introduced Jack Ryan has a low-level CIA analyst captured readers’ attention the way Zac Miller did earlier this year when Warning Light, David Ricciardi’s critically acclaimed debut thriller hit bookstores.
Now, Ricciardi is gearing up to release his second book, and Book Spy followers are getting an exclusive first look his follow-up, titled Rogue Strike.
Zac, who is now going by the name Jack Keller (which is explained in Warning Light), will have plenty of obstacles to overcome in Ricciardi’s latest novel. I asked the author what, exactly, his hero will be up to when readers see him next, and Ricciardi told me that “Jake has joined CIA’s Special Activities Center, and all eyes are upon him as he’s the youngest recruit and the only one without military special operations training.”
“In Rogue Strike, he’s on the ground in Yemen and paired with a veteran CIA officer, directing drone strikes against al-Qaeda leaders,” continued Ricciardi. “When one of the drones goes off-target and kills thousands of innocent civilians, Jake finds himself under a cloud of suspicion at CIA and hunted by terrorists in Yemen, but he has to push forward to uncover who was responsible for the attack before the United States goes to war.”
See the official plot details and cover art below.
Jake Keller finds himself in a familiar position—on the run for his life and desperate to find the shadowy figures behind a global conspiracy.
CIA agent Jake Keller and his partner, Curt Roach, are in Yemen on an important mission. They’ve been tipped off to a secret meeting of top al-Qaeda leaders. The plan is to interrupt the meeting with a few unexpected visitors—a pair of Hellfire missiles from an orbiting drone. But the drone stops responding to their signals and soon disappears over the horizon. When next seen, the drone is attacking innocent pilgrims in Mecca.
Jake and Curt are staggered. The U.S. government is desperate to disavow this atrocity. Who better to blame than a couple of rogue CIA agents? With all the governments of the Middle East looking for them and no help from their own side, they are in a desperate race to stay ahead of the mob and find out who’s actually behind the crime.
“In 2011, Iran claimed that it had spoofed an American reconnaissance drone and forced it to land inside Iran,” said Ricciardi, when asked how he came up with the plot details for Rogue Strike.
“Most people believe that the Sentinel UAV simply crashed after a malfunction, but what if a hacker could take control of an autonomous armed aircraft? It could start the next world war. It’s something all nations will have to guard against as the battlefield becomes more technologically advanced.”
Rogue Strike is scheduled to come out on June 4, 2019, and is currently available for pre-order here or anywhere else books are sold. In the meantime, make sure you’re following David Ricciardi on Facebook and Twitter for more updates.
Praised as “one of today’s finest book reviewers” by New York Times bestselling author Gayle Lynds, Ryan Steck (“The Godfather of the thriller genre” — Ben Coes) has “quickly established himself as the authority on mysteries and thrillers” (Author A.J. Tata). He currently lives in Southwest Michigan with his wife and their six children.