Vince Flynn's Memorial Day

I just finished a great "thriller" (though I hate that term, and generally the genre as well), Memorial Day.  It is the story of a group of Islamist terrorists trying to blow up Washington DC with a nuclear weapon and the small group of elite CIA operatives who are struggling to stop them in time.  Think old-school Tom Clancy for the post-9/11 world.

It's not great literature, but I couldn't put it down for the five or six hours it took to devour it.  One aspect that wrankled, however, was Flynn's occasional flirtations with misogyny.  While many of the "good guys" are women (like the Director of the CIA and the leader of a DOE NEST team), one of the leading "bad guys" is a six foot tall blonde dominatrix-wannabe whose day-time job is Deputy Attorney General responsible for counter-terrorism.  Predictably, she is more concerned with the political implications of the Patriot Act than she is about stopping terrorists.  But aside from these occasional annoyances, it's a great beach or airplane read.

Highly recommended.