BOOK REVIEW: THE FOURTH OPTION
By JACK CARR AND M.P. WOODWARD / ATRIA/EMILY BESTLER BOOKS
Reviewed by: Susan Gorgioski
The Reviewer — Susan Gorgioski is a writer who has worked in law and publishing in Australia. She is currently researching a novel set in WWII Shanghai
REVIEW: Chris Walker is a former SEAL Team Six and CIA Ground Branch operator, a student of philosophy and a man who understands himself only imperfectly. He is also the hero of The Fourth Option a new novel from Jack Carr and M.P. Woodward. Carr is famous for The Terminal List series and Woodward is a former naval intelligence officer who has written many instalments of the Jack Ryan Jr. franchise and his stand-alone excellent thriller, Red Tide.
We meet Walker and his superb Belgian Malinois, Paladin, when he is at his lowest. Living in an old VW camper van in Oregon, the warrior nicknamed “The Philosopher” is contemplating the end of existence when a well-timed call for help from the widow of his dear colleague and friend John Staub sets Walker onto a new path. This is a very well-written and haunting scene. The interplay between the thundering rain on the outside and the roiling thoughts inside the camper is edgy and elegiac.
Journeying down to New Orleans to meet up with John Staub’s widow is a slow rambling introduction to Walker’s life history. His time in Afghanistan prior to the disastrous withdrawal of the USA is the defining experience of his life. Government decision-making and policies physically and psychically wounded Walker, and he may never recover.
In New Orleans, Walker learns that his old friend’s son, Connor, had been an aspiring journalist. He was on the trail of the criminals manufacturing a new highly addictive synthetic drug that was working its way into the lives of Americans and ending them prematurely. Connor was found dead in his car of a suspected overdose, but he wasn’t an addict. His mother, Leigh Ann, is convinced that her son was the victim of a cover up involving government agencies and nefarious actors.
The narrative jumps from present day New Orleans to Afghanistan 2020. Scenes of Walker and Staub working with the Afghan Counter Terrorism Pursuit Teams are exciting and harrowing. The friendship between Staub and Walker is solid. Walker and Staub find themselves with their backs against the wall facing hell. This is a well written scene and the violence, tension and after effects are devastating.
Dealing with PTSD and guilt, Walker becomes the FBI’s most wanted in Louisiana as he sets out to destroy and avenge his friend’s family. As part of his lone man on a mission persona, Walker is totally analogue and old school. No mobile phones, laptops, or GPS -- he eschews the modern world. Although cute, this is not very plausible. An inquiring mind will want to know about the world and new technologies. Luckily he has Connor’s girlfriend, Belle, as a wisecracking sidekick and portal to the modern world.
New Orleans is a great setting for novels and the city and its history are lovingly detailed. This makes for an unsettling contrast with the graphic, disturbing and savage violence that explodes on its streets as Walker hunts the villains with cunning and relentless pace. Afghanistan does a lot of heavy lifting in the novel as a setting and as a motif for betrayal, incompetence and death. The story comes full circle with an explosive scene when Walker meets the crime syndicate’s spear; an assassin nicknamed “the Afghan.”
Walker, the philosophy student ruminates on the writings of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Hegel and the ancient Greeks, to name a few, but curiously omits Sun Tzu and his The Art of War. “Know yourself and know your enemy,” Sun Tzu cautions warriors. It will be interesting to see how Chris Walker is shaped in future novels. This is a solid action thriller from a pair of clever writers.
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