Alex Hawke is the warlord. The beginning of the story finds our hero drowning his misery in just about anything he can get his hands on surrounded by the beauty of the Caribbean. He doesn’t care where he is, just that he is numb. We find out he is titled so therefore his correct name is Lord Hawke and he has served Her Majesty the Queen his entire adult life. One likes to think of him as a grittier sort of James Bond. He is dashing, debonair and extremely good with his hands. The story in this book travels the globe and intersects several times. We have the Real IRA doing its dirty deeds in the UK and then in the States a group of extremist Muslims training up suicide bombers in its prisons.
We go back in history to the assassination of Lord Louis Mountbatten, the death of Princess Diana and many other incidences. Alex was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and actually played with Prince Charles and his siblings growing up, especially at Balmoral in Scotland, which is where the Queen spends her summers. He is on a first name basis with the Royal children and when one calls in the middle of the night to ask for help, he doesn’t hesitate for even a second before responding. MI5 and MI6 suspect they have a mole and personally I thought this is where the story was the weakest. The really ‘bad’ guy who is responsible for many of the major tragedies of the last 40 years goes by the name of Smith but I found it painfully obvious who that character was. I just wasn’t sure of the reason he committed such crimes but all is revealed at the end. This is definitely worth the time to read. It has great action, characters and clever use of real story lines woven with fiction. Note that there are a couple of relatively steamy love scenes otherwise I would recommend to all.