n this finale to Lubitz’s (Beyond Top Secret, 2015, etc.) trilogy, the identities of two amnesiacs come into question as a secret group plans to unleash a powerful mind-control drug.

Bill and Cheryl Parker happily live in the secluded paradise of Hawaii’s Molokai island. Several years earlier in Colorado, a car accident left Bill in a coma and Cheryl with brain trauma, effectively shrouding their past lives in a fog. One day, an earthquake strikes the island, and the Parkers nearly die. In Washington, D.C., Beltway Insider reporter Connie Blythe sees Cheryl in disaster footage and believes that she’s a woman named Alana Shannon. More than two years earlier, Alana, a former men’s-magazine model, shot and killed her husband, a real estate magnate; she claimed self-defense, the murder charge was dropped, and she disappeared. Further research convinces Connie that Bill is actually a man named Ryan Butler. When Blythe confronts them, they deny being anyone other than the Parkers. Blythe doesn’t give up, however, as she’s sure that the pair can aid her investigation of warmongering U.S. Rep. Steven Luke of Missouri, the central figure in a plot to use a hypnosis drug to subvert the White House and manipulate the war on terror. In this swift final volume of his series, Lubitz, a former senior official at the U.S. Department of Justice, brings an insider’s perspective to his narrative, set in the immediate years after the 9/11 attacks. At one point, for example, a seasoned agent tells a younger one about President George W. Bush’s CIA: “These new guys are vicious sharks, and if you submit to their methods, they will destroy you and the agency.” Some characters will stop at nothing to achieve their goals, and the author effectively uses terse, chilling dialogue to get this across. For instance, a former KGB agent uses a fake persona to reel in a target; later, when the woman asks why she can’t speak with “Mr. Tyman,” he answers, “Because Mr. Tyman doesn’t exist.” Fans of the series, as well as newcomers, will also enjoy the protagonists’ optimism in the face of governmental corruption and global chaos.

A smart, gritty political-conspiracy thriller.

When Bill and Cheryl Parker are visited by an aggressive reporter who has recognized them from news footage of an earthquake on Molokai, their idyllic, love-filled lives are turned upside down and inside out by more than the earthquake in this riveting political thriller, The Quiet Coup by Rob Lubitz. Imagine, if you will, suddenly beginning to wonder if you really are who you think you are, and finding out after some research, that you aren't Bill and Cheryl Parker. Worse yet, that you might have been a porn star in some life you cannot remember at all. How could such a thing happen? And suddenly, after you've told the rude reporter to get lost, all hell breaks loose. Someone tries to kidnap you both. When you try to get away, you find yourself being charged for trying to escape in restricted areas at an airport. As you frantically rush to solve the riddle of a past you can't remember, you are plunged into a terrifying trip across the mainland where those trying to protect you end up dead and where, to protect yourself, you also murder the assassin sent to "erase" you. 

Wow! Talk about an exciting thriller. The Quiet Coup is anything but a quiet read. The tension builds chapter after chapter and the reader is swept along in a tale that seems unbelievable, but is actually based on a very real probability...that of a drug so strong that it can wipe out all memories and leave only those planted by powerful people using the drug for political reasons. Most of the action is set in the US and digs into the deception and intrigue that no doubt does take place in the upper levels of the government and CIA. The drug component is based, as Rob Lubitz tells us in the afterword, on "Project MKUltra," "a secret and illegal CIA program that used drugs and hypnosis to manipulate mental states and brain functions" back in the fifties, but was exposed in 1975. Apparently, information on Project MKUltra is available on the internet if you wish to research it. How does the reader know that the tale Rob Lubitz has woven here and the implications he's made about how things work in the government, Department of Justice and CIA aren't all just the figments of a creative mind? One only has to read his bio: this author has worked for years in those upper levels. He is a criminal justice expert and has been quoted many times in major newspapers. 

It's exciting and fulfilling to read fiction like The Quiet Coup that moves at such a fast pace it's impossible to put down, and yet realize that what you're reading is entirely possible, even probable. There were two previous books in this series that will fill readers in on Bill and Cheryl's lives and how they ended up where we find them in the opening to this story. After reading The Quiet Coup, you will want to read those too. One of the most thrilling and fast reads I've ever had. Excellent writing, Rob Lubitz!