What do we call this sub-genre of the thriller? Paranoia-porn? There definitely seems to be a number of titles with the same general theme now we are a safe distance from 9-11. Certainly there are long shadows of other writers cast here, Tom Clancy or David Baldacci rather than the Dan Brown suggested by the cover blurb. 
 My first foray into the world of Maggie O'Dell, although the seventh book in her saga, deals with the enemy within. Terrorists strike at a soft target in heartland USA, but not is all it seems and we are soon engaged in a race against time to stop a second attack, but where? 
 The overall story is quite good, but it seems rushed, which leads me to what I saw as weaknesses in the book. We are not dealing with ordinary mortals here, oh no! Maggie herself is a cape and mask away from her own comic book. Not only a brilliant profiler, fearless in action and with men falling breathless at her feet, she also has a tortured past and friends, enemies and entanglements galore. She has also faced death in previous books, actually she seems to have shaken his hand, walked his dog and been to a matinee with him. There may be a second toothbrush in her bathroom. It seems a minor miracle that the worst thing that happens to her are bruised ribs from leaping onto a teenager while heroically saving his life. In short she draws very close to Mary-Suedom of the first water. 
 Some of this may be compression, the previous four books may have carefully drawn this history out of her, why she doesn't drink, actually a refreshing change from the functional alcoholics we have met before but somehow less fun, her relationships with other people, three potential romances so far, one boss who mentored her, the new boss who is less understanding. 
 The last is very telling; this is a conflict into which we are thrown into the deep end, I assume there were differences before he took over as her boss buy all we get initially is that he seems to be a spiteful bully hanging our heroine out to dry. He comes to appreciate her qualities as the book progresses but despite this she trusts him far less at the end of the book. Is this because she sees him as cowed by his earlier failures or that, having earned his trust and respect, he has become irrelevant, unimportant. From another point of view she may have transferred her loyalty to Wurth of the NSA, a stranger who just happens to be a closer copy of her old boss? 
 We want our heroes to be bigger than life, but we need them to be flawed, to be human, to be interesting. Maggie seems out of the reach of humanity. We need more than not trusting people and not wanting to drink, which is a further reflection of a lack of trust but directed at herself. Something she doesn't have a problem with if there is a plot point at hand. She is also extremely judgemental, despite not liking it when it happens to her. 
 So why two stars? I liked it with a bit of tooth sucking from time to time, it rattles along fairly well, but there is no actual puzzle here, odd in a book calling itself a thriller. Certainly the ending is a bit sharp and given the build-up, anticlimactic. 
 There is an unfortunate degree of coincidence in drawing at least three of the characters together here, too many instant solutions to problems that take days to wrangle into submission. The sheer monolithic graft required is replaced with godlike brilliance and, the gods help us, "gut feeling". Were there half stars I'd give it two and a half but as it stands it doesn't deserve three.