Joselyn Cole has left California to start up a new law practice in Friday Harbor, Washington. Among her clients are several fishermen who are dying of some toxic poisoning. A new client, Dean Belden, approaches her asking her to prepare papers to incorporate his business.

Gideon Van Ry, a Dutchman, is a former UN arms inspector now with the Institute Against Mass Destruction. He receives a communication that nuclear weapons are missing from a storage site in Russia.

A private militia group is setting up an armed camp on an island south of the Canadian/Washington border.

The highest levels of government learn that a nuclear bomb may have been transported to American soil. What's the administration's biggest concern? Why, politics of course.

Dean Belden receives a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury and asks for Joselyn's legal advice. He flies them both to Seattle in his seaplane. Joselyn tries to get information from the assistant U.S. Attorney regarding the target of the investigation but is unsuccessful. When she returns to speak with her client, Belden has disappeared. She races in a taxi to the harbor only to see Belden get into his plane and the plane explode.

Joselyn's life is soon threatened. Then Gideon Van Ry arrives on the scene and things really heat up!

Thrillers are normally books with plenty of action, and Critical Mass has that in spades. With a highly topical plot (a recent New York Times article focused on the Russian nuclear arms stockpiles in just the area Gideon visits), machinations at high levels of government, and an international setting, this book has "major motion picture" written all over it.

What it doesn't have is much character development. Joselyn's intrepid; Gideon's noble; government bureaucrats are self-serving; Belden's bad. That's about it for character development. I do, however, appreciate a thriller where the major character's female and she's involved in just as much derring-do as the male characters. What's more, Joselyn isn't one of those Emma Peel gorgeous action heroines; she's an ordinary career woman caught up in extraordinary circumstances.

Gideon, on the other hand, is an extraordinary man. His nobility of character and dedication to ideals are admirable, but there's a lack of foundation establishing his character. Other than his multi-national parentage, there's virtually no background about him. Without some explanation of the forces that shaped his personality, he comes across as a cardboard hero – courageous and self-sacrificing but without much depth.

Besides Belden, the villain of the piece is the American government. An IRS bureaucrat destroys the life of an academic. The President is more worried about his campaign fundraising being investigated than the threat posed by a nuclear device. (Harrison Ford will not be cast as the President.) Only one member of the administration seems to have an operating conscience. (The Russian government officials aren't much better.)

This book is a departure from best-selling author (The List, The Judge) Steve Martini's previous novels that were slower paced with more character development, but it's sure to be another hit on the charts – both book and cinema. For readers who are looking for a fast-paced thriller with an involved plot, I can recommend Critical Mass.

--Lesley Dunlap