Wow! Robert Marcum's writing improved dramatically from his first book to his second. This is a really exciting book! My only criticism is that the romance leaps from charged antagonism to confirmed couple in a single evening, and the author didn't even write about it...just a couple of summarizing sentences to let us know it happened. However, the military action is very charged and seems realistic, as is the Palestinian/Israeli politics he delves into. The latter made up for the abbreviated romance, and I'm really looking forward to the 3rd book is this trilogy: Sting of the Scorpion.