The Hostage by W.E.B. Griffin

The second in the Presidential Agent series by Griffin, starring Charlie Castillo, begins with the kidnapping of a U.S. diplomat's wife in Argentina. The President wants his own eyes on the ground, in addition to the CIA and FBI agents already in country, so he sends Charlie and his friends to investigate.
Things go from bad to worse, however, within a short time, when the diplomat meets with the kidnappers without anyone on the team's knowledge, and is murdered by them. His wife, however, is released. This turn of events really peeves the president, and he issues a finding which creates a special agency within the department of Homeland Security, answerable only to him, with Charlie at its head. Its mission is to "render harmless" those responsible for the murder.
The villains also, in an unsuccessful attempt to kill Charlie, manage to kill his Marine driver and wound his lady love, Betty Schneider. Worrying about her health while he's trying to figure out why this is all happening puts him under quite a bit of stress, but he seems to deal with it all right, he just gets a little whiny at times.
The pace of this novel is pretty slow. There are lots of little flashbacks and sidebars re-telling the back story that we got in the first book, for those who haven't been following from the beginning, which is a little irritating. There's another thing about this whole series that I find a bit implausible; all of the people that Castillo is friends with are just so extraordinarily competent and amiable, it begins to stretch the bonds of credibility. It's a little bit like the soirees at Lazarus Long's place in Time Enough for Love, where everyone is intelligent, beautiful and witty.
The ending, as well, was a little abrupt. I can't tell whether Griffin is planning on continuing the story line later, or whether he just couldn't figure out how to end it in a satisfying manner.
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By Order of the President, by W.E.B Griffin

A number of years ago, I read a couple of different military fiction series by Griffin, The Corps and The Brotherhood of War. They were amazingly well researched and quite entertaining. I happened to see a book in the New Books section at the library in a new series by him, and decided to start at the beginning of the series, so I checked the old fiction shelves and found this one, which begins a series, Presidential Agent.

The story begins with a 727 airplane being stolen in Africa. The US intelligence agencies report the theft, and the subsequent disappearance of the craft. Given the close proximity, in the timeline of the story, to the events of 9/11, they are directed to find out what has become of it, and what purpose the thieves intend for it.

The President is not confident in the information he's getting back from the various agencies, so he sends a special agent, an aide to the Secretary of Homeland Security, to check into the facts on the ground. The aide's name is Charley Castillo, an Army major. As he investigates, he finds some definite issues with the intelligence getting back to the President, and uncovers a plot to fly the plane, loaded with fuel, into the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.
I don't know how accurate any of the details about military history and protocols are in this book, but there are plenty of them to keep military history buffs guessing. There is an interesting mix of actual people from recent headlines, such as Colin Powell, and fictional characters, such as Secretary of Homeland Security, Matt Hall, that I occasionally had to stop and check myself for senior moments.
As is SOP with Griffin's novels, the story jumps around quickly in time and location, and it's sometimes confusing to figure out, when starting a new chapter, whether you're on the current timeline, or in a flashback that explains the background of our protagonist, Charley Castillo, or the connections between various other main characters. I realized, suddenly, as I was reading it, that there's a great deal of similarity in this style of storytelling between Griffin and Richard Hooker (ghosted in the later books by William Butterworth) M*A*S*H* series.
The novel starts a bit slowly, but as the plot thickens and we finally get most of the background details out of the way, it gains speed, and turns into a fun read. I'll probably have to pick up the next book or two in the series, when time permits.