Collision, by William Cohen

Mr. Cohen came to fiction writing as a tertiary career; he'd been a Congressman and Senator and was President Clinton's Secretary of Defense. He writing, then, is what you might expect: competent but not phenomenal. He makes up for that with good plot line and reasonably strong character development.

The hero of this novel is a former Senator and national security advisor to the President, and current practicing attorney, named Sean Falcone. Falcone was a POW during the Vietnam conflict. (Yes, that puts our hero in his mid-60's. No ageism here.)

The book was surprisingly credible: no conveniently enabled super hero stunts per the typical suspense genre. Even Falcone's access to the upper reaches of US Government seems reasonable given the background of his character.

All in all, not fabulous, but I'll read Mr. cohen's next novel to see if he's improved with practice. But only if I can get it on loan from the public library; he doesn't pass the "I'm eager to pay for it with my hard earned cash" test. Yet.


Collision: A Novel