Reviewed by Maria Beltran for Readers' Favorite

"Predator Strike" is Liam Saville's first book in what is going to be a series of novels featuring the exploits of Captain Sam Ryan, an investigator at the Australian Defense Force Investigative Service (ADFIS). The mysterious death of an Australian soldier becomes the subject of his investigation and it leads to Ryan's discovery that Osama bin Laden had been in the custody of the CIA in Syria ten years before his reported death in Pakistan. Griffith, the dead Australian soldier, has reported an Osama bin Laden sighting in Syria and is mysteriously killed by an American Predator combat drone. In the course of the investigation, Sam Ryan also finds himself a target of mysterious assassins. He also meets Erica while searching for a proof on the conspiracy, who has her own theory on the matter, and who becomes her lover.

This is a fast-paced novel that puts forth the conspiracy theory that Osama bin Laden's death was staged by the Americans. It is a crime thriller that involves allied military forces, which makes it controversial in the first place. It is entertaining and action packed, and Liam Saville succeeds in getting my attention because of the degree of deception involved. Seemingly implausible at first, I start to be convinced that it may as well happen the way it is being related in this novel. And this is the reason why it becomes a book that is difficult to put down. Will investigator Sam Ryan find his fool-proof evidence in the end or will he die in the process of his investigation? Wanting to find out the answer to these questions becomes urgent to me. As it jumps from one location to the next, it is easy to get carried away in the military world where keeping secrets is a standard procedure.