Scott Taggart is out to destroy the government after his business and family are destroyed at the hands of the IRS over a clerical error. This quote from the book says it all. "In Taggart's mind, America had reached the end of the line. It had killed Kirsten and given rise to a perpetual political class that was arrogant in its views and brazen in its corruption—a political aristocracy that displayed an indifference and contempt toward the public that was stunning. Now they would pay the price."

Several innocents get dragged into this doomsday story about anti-government/disgruntled American citizens working with Russian thugs to blow up the United States President during his State of the Union speech. The writing is excellent, and the action-packed plot is well-crafted. Although this book was written in 1998, the subject matter mimics today's headlines. Critical Mass was a heart-pounding thriller and a reminder that mass destruction is just one nuclear bomb away. Hopefully, we never reach that point. ( )

Jocelyn "Joss" Cole, a burned-out public defender from L.A., has opted for a quieter life in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. Joss has no significant clients other than a group of commercial fisherman suffering from a strange and serious illness, a condition that doctors cannot diagnose, and which Joss believes has an industrial cause. Then into her office comes Dean Belden, a well-heeled client in search of a lawyer to help him set up a business in the islands. Within days Belden is subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury. Less than an hour after testifying, and before Joss can discover what happened in the secrecy of the grand jury room, Belden dies in a fiery explosion of his float plane on Seattle's Lake Union. Gideon Van Ry is a nuclear fission expert and a scholar in residence at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. One of his duties is to update the Center's database, an extensive catalog listing fissionable materials and weapons of mass destruction. Gideon is troubled by the apparent failure to account for two small tactical nuclear devices missing from a storage facility in the former Soviet Union.The two weapons were last seen in packing crates, to be shipped to an American company called Belden Electronics. Gideon has been unable to locate this firm, and now he is left with only one possible lead, the lawyer who incorporated the company-Jocelyn Cole. Fraught with tension and suspense, Critical Mass is Steve Martini at his electrifying best. It is the story of what can happen in a world where private hate and public apathy combine to uncork the sleeping but deadly genie of nuclear terror. ( )

okay @ attempt to make a nuclear device - illegally

Jocelyn Cole, a burned-out public defender from L.A., has opted for a quieter life in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. Joss has no significant clients other than a group of commercial fisherman suffering from a strange and serious illness, a condition that doctors cannot diagnose, and which Joss believes has an industrial cause. Then into her office comes Dean Belden, a well-heeled client in search of a lawyer to help him set up a business in the islands. Within days Belden is subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury. Less than an hour after testifying, and before Joss can discover what happened in the secrecy of the grand jury room, Belden dies in a fiery explosion of his float plane on Seattle's Lake Union.

Not one of his best. I liked the characters of Joselyn and Gideon and the story was good, but Martini didn't really create a sense of suspense and the ending held no big surprises. So it didn't grab me as much as some of his others. ( )

I've enjoyed other books by this author so it looked like a good read when I was stuck in an airport. I got half way through it before I remembered I'd actually read it several years ago - but I was hooked and still read through again to the end.

I thought Martini was beginning to stretch his courtroom characters a little too thin in The Judge; I'm glad he went off in a new direction in this book. It's as full of unexpected turns as all his previous whodunits, but this time with domestic and international terrorists. The basic plot is pretty much believable (even if there are a few too many miraculous escapes) and it'd make a great movie. Martini is to be commended for having a strong woman as protagonist; I only regret she never got her "constitutional rights". In the end, Martini kills off the wrong character; the character I had really bonded to and wanted to see in future books. (Or, did he really die? In this book, you're never sure!)

Maybe you have to suspend disbelief in a few places; and the technical stuff may be a little off beam; but it is a novel, guys, not a text book. A great trash read for a beach day, an airplane flight, or a lazy Saturday. ( )