Here we go again with Michelle Reagan, code name Eden, and her adventures. This time, the secret agent of the CIA has to deal with the kidnapping of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency while he’s traveling back home with his wife. When someone highjacks the flight, a task force is set up to investigate the incident. The entire resources of the Agency are solely focused on finding the missing Director, but the abductors were very good at erasing all evidence of where they took him and his wife. Surprisingly to her, Eden is asked to lead an elite team of US Navy SEALs to free the Director when finally the task force is able to identify their location. But her job doesn’t end there. If something goes wrong with the rescue, she will have to carry out Directive One.

Directive One by Scott Shinberg is another installment in the Michelle Reagan series and I loved this one even more than the first. This novel, unlike the previous one, doesn’t use first-person POV, which is not my favorite and was rather jarring. Still, I liked that book though. In this case, the novel is written with a fluid narration in an omniscient POV. As the story leaps, the reader can fly in their imagination with this professional secret agent. As an old fan of Robert Ludlum and Len Deighton, discovered in my teens, I still enjoy reading spy stories, although they all have that taste of the impossible at some point or another when one wonders why there are no major consequences at a global level due to these secret agents ‘actions. After all, it’s fiction and it still makes me wonder what part could be true about these stories. I guess I’ll never know.

Scott Shinberg’s Directive One is the second book in the Michelle Reagan series, which provides a glimpse of what happens within the cloak and dagger world of International Intelligence Services. In her role as CIA Special Activities Operative, Michelle Reagan is regularly required to place herself in peril, carrying out highly critical and dangerous assignments. The latest crisis is triggered by the kidnapping of CIA Director Richard Duncan and his wife from a domestic airline flight, which galvanizes the entire CIA and other Federal Organizations into a totally committed drive to locate and rescue their own most precious assets. In carrying out her latest assignment, Michelle provides an insight into the incredible scope of emotions and stresses these special people endure in service to their nation; a service that invariably attracts no recognition or public reward.

I found Directive One by Scott Shinberg to be a very slick and professionally-crafted read, which made it very evident that it was based on well-grounded knowledge of the intelligence aspects covered. The characters were rich and unique in their own special ways, with all of them demonstrating a depth that made them real. Michelle being in a relationship with Dr. Steven Krauss, who also worked for the CIA, set up an interesting dynamic in that Steven was probably senior to Michelle, whilst her work seemed to be more secretive in its nature. The interplay between Michelle and the Director was another important ingredient, with a similar inverse dynamic placing their relationship into unknown territory. This is one book you won’t want to put down until you read the last word.