By Brian Haig
Warner Books
Hardcover and Audio Cassette (Abridged) Editions

By now many readers have become happily acquainted with the style of Major Sean Drummond's amusingly sarcastic personality. In The Kingmaker, Brian Haig's third book, circumstances affect Major Drummond in such a way that his attitude becomes occasionally more caustic than normal.

The Kingmaker Excerpt I spun around just in time to see three men climbing out of a car at the end of the street we'd just come down. They were dressed in suits, which somehow looked outrageously incongruous, because they were all holding Kalashnikov rifles in their hands. I shoved Katrina's head down and yelled, "On the floor!" Mel spun around and saw what I was looking at. He froze. I screamed, "Weapons? Do you have any weapons?" He was just starting to reach across me when the first rounds came spraying through the rear windshield. I was splattered with glass and blood as Mel's head appeared to explode and his body flopped over and landed in my lap. ©2003 Brian Haig Published with permission from Warner Books

This time around, our beloved JAG officer is asked to defend a man accused of treason - not just any treason, however, but the worst case against the United States government to date. To make matters more difficult, treason is not the only charge against him.

The overzealous prosecutor has also added such things as adultery, perjury and murder. Major Drummond has a hard road ahead of him, and not just in defending someone that seems to have no possible defense, but also due to the fact that he despises his client.

Brigadier General William Morrison is married to the one woman Drummond has always wanted to spend his life with...the one that got away. Morrison has been a thorn in Drummond's side for years, and now he's stuck trying to prove his innocence when helping him is the last thing he truly wants to do.

The clouds eventually open up, though, and a ray of possibility shines through. If Drummond can find the man known as "The Kingmaker," he can possibly find the truth behind the accusations against Morrison. With the help of his Russian-speaking, leather-wearing co-counsel, Katrina Mazorski, and the ever-present legal assistant Sergeant First Class Imelda Pepperfield, he might just be able to beat the odds.

Brian Haig has developed a character that is likeable and laughable at the same time that he is being brash and brilliant, which gives life to the books rather than making them just dry, legal tomes.

Bookworm's Briefing

One of the best aspects of these novels is that they can each stand alone. While Sean Drummond, Imelda Pepperfield and some of the other characters surrounding his career are present in each volume, there is not a thread connecting them in such a way that the reader must follow them in order.

In fact, Brian Haig even takes the time to explain Drummond's "black unit" background in all three. In this way, one isn't left guessing as to how exactly he got where he was, yet he doesn't approach it in such a way that makes a Drummond "follower" feel as though it is redundant.