Bloodbath

What if a team of Middle-Eastern assassins came to slaughter delegates to a UN debate on terrorism? In this action thriller, Harry Stein, an obscure journalist who has access to the debate, is shanghaied by a squad of Israeli counter terrorists to help thwart the attack. A lonely widower, Harry is enchanted by a female counter-terrorist, all the while tormented by the philosophical conundrum: is it morally acceptable to pre-emptively slaughter the assassins? "Bloodbath: Target UN will bite your boogaloo It's a hellishly hip hybrid of The French Connection and Black Sunday, updated and corrosively contemporaneous Sock in for a savage night's reading. Ken Gross's new novel will hang you out to dry " --James Ellroy BLOODBATH: TARGET UN is a thriller with a soul, narrated by a wise and melancholic "semi-retired freelance writer" from Brooklyn Heights who quotes Francis Bacon and notices the little details as well as the big ones. It features a girlfriend names Jane and a bunch of Israeli commandos with names like Avi and Motti who are planning a pre-emptive counter-terrorist strike. It reads like gangbusters and makes you wish Ken Gross would hurry up and write the sequel. ---Daphne Merkin