Brad Taylor continues to amaze. With the newly published GHOSTS OF WAR, he has given us 10 novels and a number of shorter works in the space of five years. What is doubly remarkable is that he has produced this bountiful quantity without sacrificing quality, infusing an ostensible work of fiction with real-world threats. There may not be an off-the-books, extralegal counterterrorist group called --- or even like --- the Taskforce, and there may not be operatives like Pike Logan or Jennifer Cahill. But you cannot come away from reading any book in this iconic series without wishing that there were.

That said, Taylor demonstrates here that he is not content to send Pike and Jennifer off on a new mission similar to their previous ones, as satisfying as that would be from a reader’s standpoint. His latest effort goes a bit beyond that. The threat this time around is more tangible in a geopolitical sense.

"[GHOSTS OF WAR] definitely uses a bigger canvas than [Taylor] has employed previously, yet his transition is flawless, and is every bit as suspenseful, exciting and believable as his earlier novels."

GHOSTS OF WAR begins with the Taskforce on standdown status following the events of THE FORGOTTEN SOLDIER, the previous installment in the series. During the hiatus, while waiting to see when (or even if) the team will be reactivated, Pike and Jennifer are recruited by a pair of Israeli operatives to assist in the verification of some artifacts recently discovered in Poland. The mission would be intriguing in any event, given that the objects in question are on what appears to be a legendary and long-lost Nazi “gold train.” The team barely arrives on site when it quickly discovers that it is on a hot spot. Events overtake them when Russia, using the excuse of self-defense as a ruse, invades Poland’s neighbor, Belarus.

Even worse news awaits the team when it is learned that the United States has been on the receiving end of a dastardly attack so deadly that NATO mobilizes in an attempt to locate the threat. Pike and Jennifer are all but cut off from any sort of effective resources that they ordinarily would have at their disposal. There is yet another attack coming, one that is all but certain to trigger a world war and designed to do exactly that. Pike and Jennifer do what they do best: they improvise, working with what little they have and acquiring more as they go along. The one issue that hangs like a cloud over most of the book is if what they do will be sufficient, and in enough time.

As is obvious from the above, GHOSTS OF WAR departs from terrorism, which has been the main theme uniting Taylor’s prior Logan books. It definitely uses a bigger canvas than he has employed previously, yet his transition is flawless, and is every bit as suspenseful, exciting and believable as his earlier novels. One can almost see the movement in the real world, following what he lays out in exquisite detail, in the next month or even in the next week. As we well know by now, events such as these often come without warning. All that can be done is to anticipate, and prepare, as Taylor so effectively demonstrates.