Cole Ryder

Cole Ryder writes thrillers about the paperwork of violence. Who signs, who is named on the record, and what happens to the one person whose initials are on the line when the record turns out to be wrong.

The Kill Chain follows Cal Zamora, a drone sensor operator who puts the crosshair on a man in Mali, logs him killed, and six weeks later watches the same man walk across a casino car park in Reno. What he finds underneath is less a conspiracy than an administrative habit, four years deep, lawful on its face and attributable to nobody at all. Reaching the people who built it costs him his squadron, two friends, and in the end the career he spends four books trying to hold on to.

The books are procedural where it counts and fast everywhere else. If your shelf holds Mark Greaney, Lee Child and Brad Thor, you are already home.