Joel C. Rosenberg is back with his most explosive novel to date, one that brings his bestselling Marcus Ryker series to an epic conclusion.
Set after the events of The Libyan Diversion (2023), former secret service agent turned counterterrorism operative Marcus Ryker has been tasked with hunting down the world’s most wanted terrorist, Abu Nakba, commander of Kairos, a well-connected terrorist organization who, for years, has been hellbent on striking a fatal blow to the United States. Previously, Marcus thought he had killed Nakba in a drone strike, but the terrorist mastermind not only survived, he continued leading attacks against Washington D.C., London, and Jerusalem.
Opening in Chicago, Nakba pulls off his most deadly attack yet when Kairos jihadists attack Soldier Field, where a hundred thousand people are attending a large Mass. Among them are Andrew Clarke, the president of the United States, the First Lady, and Pope Pius XIII. Horrified, everyone from CNN to Al Jazeera cut their broadcasts as missiles rained down on the stadium. Cutting to a veteran news anchor, CNN continues to report on the mass casualties when more breaking news comes in that a 737-passenger jet has been hijacked somewhere between Michigan and Canada and has diverted towards Chicago. The news—which was expected and, in fact, carefully planned—brings a smile to Nakba’s face.
Picking up eight months later, the rest of the world is on fire. Alliances are being tested, and intelligence agencies around the globe are rife with incoming reports of impending attacks. Marcus, who was on the ground in Chicago and played a role in responding to the chaos and carnage of the biggest attack on American soil since 9/11, has been ordered once again to find Nakba at all costs. But the old terrorist is hardly the only threat keeping Marucs up at night. Secretly, the leaders of Communist China have been scheming to challenge America by way of invading Taiwan, while publicly, China engages the US in an unprecedented trade deal. Shadow games are afoot, and worse yet, an even more sinister attack is in the works—one that, if successful, could prove to be more than ten times as deadly as the strike on Soldier Field.
With the clock rapidly ticking down and a nuclear war unlike anything mankind has ever seen becoming more and more likely with each passing minute, Marcus Ryker must find a way to stop the end of the world before things reach a point of no return.
Joel C. Rosenberg sure knows how to wrap up a franchise. He’s done it with past characters, including Jon Bennett, David Shirazi, and J.B. Collins, but there’s no question that this is his most explosive series finale yet. What really sets his latest apart, though, is that while Rosenberg has a long track record of seeing his fiction play out in real-time, he’s never concluded a franchise at a time when the plot feels so grounded to current events or ended things in such a ripped-from-the-headlines way. It’s rather surreal to read such a novel while living in a time when, not that long ago, a former president was nearly assassinated on live television. Given the operational lapses in security that day, along with subsequent responses from the former director of the Secret Service, it’s a matter of fact that today’s fiction writers are held to a higher standard than actual real life. Of those actively writing political thrillers today, Rosenberg and Brad Thor are in a class of their own when it comes to plausibly plotting out threat scenarios that, while they make riveting fiction, feel almost too real for comfort.
Perhaps even wilder is the fact that Rosenberg no doubt wrote his novel before the attempted assassination that actually occurred in Pennsylvania on July 13th. He couldn’t have known while writing this story that Americans would be acutely and intimately aware of the fear, panic, and raw emotions from watching a live news broadcast about such an attack. The immediacy and familiarity with such an event make the suspense and tension of Rosenberg’s heart-pounding opening palpable, and it’s impossible to look away or pause for even a brief moment once the action begins. To balance things, Rosenberg, a master of character development, knows when to pull back and put the camera squarely on Marcus Ryker, a hero who has served him well and fast and become one of the genre’s very best protagonists. Between the gunfights and tense moments is a lot of heart, with plenty of time given to continue Marcus’ own story arc, where Rosenberg may or may not subvert expectations, depending on how you believe his latest series will ride off into the sunset. Longtime fans of Rosenberg’s work will know all too well that, in his fiction, nobody is ever safe, and nobody is off-limits. That alone will no doubt have his fans sprinting to the end, desperate to learn not only if Marcus Ryker can save the day . . . but if he makes it out alive.
Readers had better hope that Joel Rosenberg—who has been known for beating headlines and is currently covering the war in the Middle East from on the ground in Israel—didn’t just once again predict future events because The Beijing Betrayal is his most heart-stopping, action-packed novel to date. A perfect thriller, this one will be hard to top in 2025, setting a high bar for everything that’ll follow and whatever Rosenberg does next.
Book Details
Author: Joel C. Rosenberg
Series: Marcus Ryker #6
Pages: 416 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 1496437993
Publisher: Tyndale Fictions
Release Date: March 11, 2025
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