Assault on Saint Agnes

By Joseph Courtemanche

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1936830817
• ISBN13: 9781936830817
• Release Date: April 2016
• Publisher: Athanatos Publishing Group
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Don't let the title fool you--this is a contemporary counter-terrorism thriller classic of the War o

Don't let the title fool you, Assault on St. Agnes is not the story of a WWII battle at a rural French cathedral. It's an award-winning debut suspense-techno-thriller novel by Joe Courtemanche, a former police officer, Navy cryptologist, and counter-terror specialist. Assault on St. Agnes is about a Cold War-era Navy counter-terrorism veteran named Bobby Kurtz who is forced back into service to confront a terrorist cell in his own back yard. As the novel opens, Kurtz is living in low-key retirement in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area. He just happens to be visiting a church service at St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church when it is attacked by terrorists. During the course of the attack, Kurtz's old training kicks in. He manages to kill all of the terrorists with his concealed carry handgun before being stunned into unconsciousness by a timed bomb blast. Kurtz awakes to find himself arrested by Homeland Security and tagged as a suspect instead of a hero. Local law enforcement and the FBI are convinced he must have had insider information to thwart the attack. Colene Abbott, the local director of a covert Homeland Security counter-terrorism organization, steps in to take control of Kurtz's fate. She knows his background as an Arab linguist and counter-terrorism expert. She also recognizes he is a local character who seems to know almost everyone and anything about the St. Paul-Minneapolis Metro area. Recognizing his potential as an intelligence asset, Abbott offers Kurtz a deal -- face the FBI charges and expect to spend the next ten years in a Federal prison. Or sign-up to join her special unit, an open-ended commitment until the entire terror network in the area is broken. Kurtz signs on and the story takes off from there. What follows is an unusually intense introduction to the world of communications intelligence and counter-intelligence melded with a classic law enforcement criminal conspiracy investigation. The pace of the novel quickens as the team's investigation draws closer to its inevitable conclusion. Throughout the telling, the scenes go back and forth between Kurtz's team of operators and the Islamo-terror cell led by a man named Hassan (code name: High Voltage). This well-developed plot device gives the reader insight into how the Islamist extremist mind operates. It's really well done. Courtemanche is, after all, an Arabist and counter-terrorism veteran himself. And his storytelling is superb. I won't spoil the ending for readers out there. Suffice to say, this novel ends with a bang. Courtemanche has hit it out of the park with his debut thriller. It's already won several awards from Christian fiction organizations. But don't let the "Christian" label scare you. This is high-end techno-thriller stuff, the characters are edgy and realistic, and the story is neither sappy nor predictable. If there are any Amish-Romance-Suspense love triangles lurking in the background, I am sure they disintegrated in the first explosive blast in the sanctuary of St. Agnes. Nothing preachy, in your face or over-baked about this -- this is muscular Christianity, after all, with a hero who just happens to be a man of faith. Assault on St. Agnes is highly recommended.