David Vinjamuri, Operator and Binder ***

Operator starts out promisingly. The instigating mystery is refreshingly modest (Did Michael Herne's ex-girlfriend kill herself?), and the story of Herne's motivations for joining the military ring true. He currently works as an intelligence analyst, and that life too sounds realistic. But it doesn't take long before we learn that Herne is the best there ever was, beating top snipers during training, learning martial arts from a secret sensei in Japan, and speaking multiple Afghan dialects flawlessly. Of course his former girlfriend had stumbled onto a vast Russian conspiracy (based in a small town in the Catskills?) involving human sex trafficking and the blackmailing of government officials. And of course Herne single-handedly bests dozens of the most dangerous criminals in the world.

As befits a sequel, Binder features a more global conspiracy and wilder action sequences. At one point, Herne escapes from the white supremacists who tortured him on a motorcycle, jumps the cycle off of a 1000-foot high bridge, lands on top of a BASE jumper's parachute, and lands in the whitewater river below. That's a small part of what he does to thwart the supremacists' plot, which involves operations in a South African nuclear power plant, several coal mines, oil refineries, and a runaway train.

The author writes action well, especially hand-to-hand combat. The over-the-top stories conform to the conventions of the genre, albeit with more product placement than usual. (Is Blackhawk! military gear a sponsor?)