At the end of Duane Swierczynski's Hell & Gone, the second book in the Charlie Hardie trilogy, it seemed as if things couldn't get any wilder. Luckily, Swierczynski's imagination is as fertile as ever in Point & Shoot, as Hardie gets to settle some scores with the previously named Accident People--now called the Cabal--who have brought him nothing but grief.
The story opens with Hardie stuck in a satellite 500 miles above the earth. In exchange for his wife and son's continued safety, the Cabal is making him guard something--they won't tell him what--with orders to shoot anything or anyone who tries to get inside. One day someone does try to break in; from there, things get more outrageous, with the satellite crashing into the Pacific Ocean and Hardie racing against time and across the country to save his family.
Like the previous books, Point & Shoot crosses the boundaries of plausibility, but it doesn't matter because the adventure is so inventive and fun. It keeps spinning in crazy, funny, violent directions, without any brakes or GPS to inform readers where it's going. Swierczynski also switches to second-person voice for some chapters, and it works on two levels--delineating between two characters' POVs, and putting "you" right in the heart of the action. Strap in tight, and get ready for the jump into hyperspace. --Elyse Dinh-McCrilllis, freelance writer/editor, blogging at Pop Culture Nerd