The Kingmaker

Rating:
Summary: The best legal thriller there is!
Review: Brian Haig keeps getting better and better. Haig is one of the few authors for whom I will not wait for the paperback, but rather read the hot-off-the-presses hardcover edition. Sean Drummond is no less irreverant or less with the "wise-guy" wise cracks in THE KINGMAKER than his earlier appearances. In addition to being a great thriller, Haig's fiction has a lot more belly-laugh humor than the other typical legal thrillers. I just want to know who if going to portray MAJ Sean Drummond in the film version. I really regret that I had to wait until the paper-back edition came out to post this review, but I spent the last 18 months or so in Afghanistan and Iraq, and where I was stationed the hard-cover wasn't available.

Rating:
Summary: I love Brian Haig's books!
Review: His books are fantastic! They are like a cross between a John Grisham novel and a Nelson Demille novel. Check them out,start with Secret Sanctions. I believe that's the first one.

Rating:
Summary: Who makes the Kings?
Review: I like Brian Haig. I liked his Dad too, although gratefully for different reasons. But no doubt to some extent because of his father, Brian Haig has the knowledge of the inner circle or inner sanctum sufficient to make his plots believable and not far fetched.

And then there's Major Drummond, USA, JAG, courageous, witty, good sense of morals, completely irreverant, funny, relentless, and above all loyal.

Here's he's asked to represent a General Officer accused of treason. He's asked not by the General; both men hold eachother in contempt. He's asked by the General's wife. Seems that Sean got there first with the lovely, conniving Mary, who eventually dumped Sean to marry Bill. That's General Bill, now incarcerated in Leavenworth Military prison, charged with treason, adultery, and murder.

Mary did OK for herself, too, rising where few women succeed, in the tesosterone infected CIA. Haig has no love for the CIA or the FBI or the NSC, all places he is quite familiar with. What Drummond has to prove is, if it isn't his non-friend Bill, then who sold secrets to the Russians?

Remarkably, albeit now Russia is vodka drenched run by the Mafiya, we do believe that they still have millions of nuclear warheads at least some of them unaccounted for. Sean hooks up (well not really but professionally) with Katrina, a lawyer of high intellect and no resume, and the two catfight through several hundred pages in the defense of their client. She's a good match for Drummond as the two survive assination attempts, disrspecting eachother, and a sense of loyalty to eachother.

If I had a criticism it would be that I enjoyed some of the other Drummond stories where he has more contact with his superiors in JAG. Here, most of the work is in his own and while he does well, nevertheless it does seem to be a solo effort and one is left with the question, 'how'd he do that?'

The ending is not forecast too soon; there's a kind of gap at the end that makes you wonder how Sean stayed alive. Notwithstanding, he's a heroic guy that we'd like to have around if push came to shove. I'm a believer. Good read. 5 stars. Larry Scantlebury

Rating:
Summary: Hold on tight or you might fly off
Review: Sean Drommond is back at his wise-cracking best. His next assignment has him defending an "obviously" guilty general, who happens to have married Drummond's old girl friend.

Drummond brings on board a most unconventional co-counsel that would just as soon scratch his eyes out as assist him in his case.

The old girl friend seems to still have the hots for Drummond and her filthy rich father still disapproves of Drummond.

The case is going poorly, but Drummond figures he's doing something right when people crawl out from under rocks and try to kill him.

This is another winner.

Brian Haig is on my must read list.