David A. Rollins — Hard Rain

Pan Macmillan Australia 2008 Paperback, 424pp. When the US Attache to Turkey, Colonel Emmet Portman, is found butchered in his Istanbul residence, Special Agents Vin Cooper and Anna Masters are sent to investigate. Within days of their arrival, Portman's associates begin to die gruesomely. There's a serial killer at large. But there are inconsistencies. Why does one murder appear to have religious symbolism, while the next doesn't? Why do the slayings appear to have been executed with military precision? And why has Portman's email inbox been tampered with and whole days' worth of communications apparently wiped out? Nothing is making a hell of a lot of sense to Cooper - not least, Anna's plan to marry JAG lawyer Colonel Richard Wadding, known to everyone who has ever come into contact with him as Colonel Dick Wad. Cooper and Masters find themselves hunted, smacked around, shot at, buried alive and blown up from Turkey to Iraq, to Egypt to Oak Ridge. It would be helpful if they were on speaking terms. (ISBN: 9781405038287). Good.