James W. Huston Books In Order

Jim Dillon Books In Publication Order

  1. Balance of Power (1998)
  2. The Price of Power (1999)

Kent “Rat” Rathman Books In Publication Order

  1. The Shadows of Power (2002)
  2. Secret Justice (2003)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Flash Point (2000)
  2. Fallout (2001)
  3. Marine One (2009)
  4. Falcon Seven (2010)
  5. The Blood Flag (2015)

Jim Dillon Book Covers

Kent “Rat” Rathman Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

James W. Huston Books Overview

Balance of Power

Tom Clancy meets David Baldacci in this electrifying debut a blockbuster tale of terrorism, naval action, legal intrigue, and a historic showdown on Capitol Hill. Balance of Power opens with a bang when pirates hijack the world’s fastest merchant ship in a ruthless plan to spark an international incident. Instead, the attack provokes a Constitutional crisis and splits the U.S. government down the middle. Jim Dillon, Special Assistant to the Speaker of the House, discovers a long forgotten clause in the Constitution that allows Congress to take military action without presidential approval, and his ambitious boss sees an opportunity to humiliate his rival in the Oval Office. Over at the White House, Dillon’s old friend Molly is working feverishly on a legal strategy to block the Speaker’s gambit; the case moves swiftly toward the Supreme Court and a trial drama that equals anything found in a Grisham thriller. Meanwhile, in the Pacific, a ‘rogue’ U.S. Navy battle group races toward a deadly rendezvous with terrorists. With H Hour drawing ever closer, fighter jocks, Navy SEALs, and Marine assault teams prepare for action in a frenzy of activity that sweeps from the carrier’s high tech intelligence center to the high tension cockpit of an F 14 to the Marines storming ashore on a tropical island. The author was a carrier pilot himself, and the military scenes crackle with authentic detail that outdoes Clancy. Flashing between the political clash in Washington and the countdown to assault halfway around the globe, Balance of Power builds to a suspenseful crescendo that blends political battles, legal skirmishing, and naval warfare into a blockbuster that’s sure to explode onto bestseller lists all over America.

The Price of Power

An admiral is on trial for having defied the President while carrying out the orders of a rebellious Congress?A President is on trial for having failed to act when a crisis threatened his country. In a nation’s darkest hour, a terrorist strikes. Congressional aide Jim Dillon discovered a little known provision in the U.S. Constitution and it plunged the federal government into chaos. Now he struggles to gain control over the extraordinary events his actions precipitated: volunteering for the defense team at the court marshal of Admiral Ray Billings, who disregarded a presidential order by leading an assault on foreign terrorists. At the same time, in the South Pacific, a fanatic plans to exploit the weaknesses of an American government in upheaval by brutally shedding American blood and taking innocent citizens hostage. But nothing will prevent a great nation from doing what is right, no matter what the price, not when the honor and the future of America is at stake. An admiral is on trial for having defied the President while carrying out the orders of a rebellious Congress?A President is on trial for having failed to act when a crisis threatened his country. In a nation’s darkest hour, a terrorist strikes. Congressional aide Jim Dillon discovered a little known provision in the U.S. Constitution and it plunged the federal government into chaos. Now he struggles to gain control over the extraordinary events his actions precipitated: volunteering for the defense team at the court marshal of Admiral Ray Billings, who disregarded a presidential order by leading an assault on foreign terrorists. At the same time, in the South Pacific, a fanatic plans to exploit the weaknesses of an American government in upheaval by brutally shedding American blood and taking innocent citizens hostage. But nothing will prevent a great nation from doing what is right, no matter what the price, not when the honor and the future of America is at stake. An admiral is on trial for having defied the President while carrying out the orders of a rebellious Congress?A President is on trial for having failed to act when a crisis threatened his country. In a nation’s darkest hour, a terrorist strikes. Congressional aide Jim Dillon discovered a little known provision in the U.S. Constitution and it plunged the federal government into chaos. Now he struggles to gain control over the extraordinary events his actions precipitated: volunteering for the defense team at the court marshal of Admiral Ray Billings, who disregarded a presidential order by leading an assault on foreign terrorists. At the same time, in the South Pacific, a fanatic plans to exploit the weaknesses of an American government in upheaval by brutally shedding American blood and taking innocent citizens hostage. But nothing will prevent a great nation from doing what is right, no matter what the price, not when the honor and the future of America is at stake.

The Shadows of Power

Lieutenant Ed Stovic, an F/A 18 pilot, is vectored to intercept Algerians who are defending their newly claimed two hundred mile territorial limit. During a dramatic, high stakes dogfight, the Algerians open fire and Stovic shoots down one of the Algerians’ MiGs, its pilot tumbling to a fiery death in the Mediterranean. Stovic is hailed as a hero, and he sees this as the perfect moment to help him achieve his life long dream flying with the world famous Blue Angels, the Navy’s elite flight demonstration team. Ismael Nezzar, the brother of the deceased Algerian pilot, is in the U.S. on a student visa. He sees the boastful Stovic on the Today show and is enraged by his glibness. While attending his brother’s funeral the biggest event in Algeria in a decade Ismael is coerced by a group of Islamic radicals to seek revenge for his brother’s death. Though he withdrew from the powerful group years before, Ismael is filled with fury and will stop at nothing to destroy Stovic. Unknown to either of these two men, Kent Rathman has been assigned by a highly placed government official to watch them. Working in the shadows, Rat moves easily among government agencies and is ordered by his White House contacts including the President and the NSA director, who has plans to bring about a change of power on her own to stop the Algerian. To save his country and his friend, Rat must devise a brilliant counterstrike a mission in which failure means certain death. Packed with deadly intrigue, Beltway power plays, and high flying adventure, The Shadows of Power is Huston’s most exciting novel yet. Combining his knowledge of how things work in Washington with his expertise on military hardware, Huston has written an electrifyingly realistic tale of international terrorism and American triumph.

Secret Justice

James W. Huston takes the hottest issue of our time the War on Terrorism and explores it with a compelling, stay up late thriller filled with high stakes courtroom drama, white knuckle in the cockpit flying, and the shadowy world of American Special Forces operations. Lieutenant Kent ‘Rat’ Rathman is back. In the middle of the desert, in the dead of night, Lieutenant Rathman parachutes with his Special Forces team into Sudan, where an arms merchant is selling weapons to Wahamed Duar, the world’s most wanted man in the ongoing War on Terrorism. Duar escapes, but a key member of his organization is captured. Determined to find Duar, Rat uses questionable means of persuasion to uncover his whereabouts and the information leads to his capture. But the man he brutally interrogated later dies as a result on a U.S. Navy ship. Washington is thrilled with Duar’s capture, but a slick European lawyer with the International Criminal Court asserts that Rat violated international law and fundamental human rights. The Secretary of Defense sees an opportunity to gain political ground against his rival in the National Security Agency by taking her friend Rat down a notch; he decides to throw Rat to the wolves. Rat is arrested and put on trial for torturing a prisoner and violating the Geneva Convention. As he goes on trial for war crimes, Wahamed Duar begins his own trial, the first major tribunal conducted by the military to take place aboard the USS Belleau Wood. Duar may be a prisoner, but he still has big plans. According to the National Security Agency, his network appears to be involved in an attempt to gather radioactive cores from abandoned Russian nuclear generators for use in a dirty bomb. As the parallel trials begin to boil, Duar’s men prepare to strike. But is it Duar who is actually on trial? And who is gathering abandoned nuclear cores in the Georgian Republic? Only Rat can put the pieces together, but can he protect the United States from the impending attack while defending himself in a secret courtroom on the top floor of the Department of Justice?

Flash Point

With the same daredevil flying action found in Top Gun and the riveting nonstop storytelling that has established James W. Huston’s reputation, here is an explosive novel that takes us from the cockpits of carrier based naval fighters to the inside of the CIA and the Mossad, as one man’s determination to avenge a wrongful death has the potential to ignite an international war of deceit, murder, and retaliation. Sean Woods and Tony Vialli are F 14 pilots stationed aboard the USS George Washington in the Mediterranean. During a port call in Naples, Vialli falls for a beautiful woman he meets on a train who tells him she’s Italian. She finally reveals she isn’t Italian at all, and lures him out of the country to visit her. Vialli submits false leave papers, swears Woods to secrecy, and flies off to see her. His lover’s trip becomes a nightmare when Vialli and the woman are brutally attacked in what appears to be a terrorist action. Enraged over his friend’s vicious assault and furious at the lack of American response, Woods thinks the United States should retaliate against the man claiming responsibility, who says he is part of a secret society of Assassins founded in the eleventh century. Woods wants his country to declare war against this man personally, but his congressman pays no attention. A group of Israeli Air Force pilots offer Woods the chance to exact his own revenge by flying a section of F 14s with the Israelis, without the U.S. Navy’s knowledge. Woods’s flight turns into one of the biggest air battles since World War II. He must fight for his life, then fight to keep what he has done secret from the Navy and the rest of the world all because of a woman whose identity and motives continue to elude him. James W. Huston has crafted a spellbinding tale worthy of the best of Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy. His crisp, energetic writing keeps the reader enthralled throughout this multilayered story of military action, personal courage. international intrigue, and true life events. Having set his own standard with Balance of Power and The Price of Power, he raises it to an entirely new level with Flash Point.

Fallout

Devastated at being reprimanded for a midair collision, TOPGUN instructor Luke Henry quits the Navy to start a private aerial combat school in the Nevada desert, where he and a number of his buddies, all former TOPGUN fliers part of the Old Bro network train fighter pilots for the U.S. government. Prior to leaving the Navy, Luke discovers that the United States has purchased twenty MiG 29s Russia’s front line fighter from Moldova, of the former Soviet Union. These are the very planes he wants to use for his own school, flying the Russian MiGs from an abandoned Air Force base. But Luke’s lucrative contract with the U.S. government comes with a caveat: among his students are a group of Pakistani Air Force pilots handpicked by the Department of Defense whom he must instruct. Luke is hesitant to train fighters from another country in the skills he learned at TOPGUN, but he won’t be allowed to start the school without agreeing. The school opens, but the closer he gets to these students, the more he suspects that they may have an entirely different, and malicious, agenda in mind. They have a bone to pick with the United States and may be using Luke’s school as their Trojan Horse to get into the country and launch an attack that would cause more damage than that sustained at Pearl Harbor. It falls to Luke to discover their plan and to stop it before it spirals out of control. With Fallout James W. Huston scores big with his most riveting and thought provoking thriller yet. Filled with exciting twists and turns and characters whose motivations will keep readers guessing until the startling conclusion, Fallout is a story of domestic terrorism that is as realistic as it is terrifying.

Marine One

The president rushes across the South Lawn through a pounding thunderstorm to Marine One to fly to Camp David late at night. His advisers plead with him not to fly, but he insists. He has arranged a meeting that only three people in his administration know about. After fighting its way through the brutal thunderstorm on the way to Camp David, Marine One crashes into a ravine in Maryland, killing all aboard. The government blames the European manufacturer of the helicopter and accuses them of killing the president. Senate Investigations and Justice Department accusations multiply as Mike Nolan, a Marine Corps reserve helicopter pilot and trial attorney in civilian life, is hired to defend the company from the criminal investigations, then from a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the most notorious lawyer in America on behalf of the First Lady. Nolan knows that to prevail in the firestorm against his client, he has to find out what really caused Marine One to crash, and why the president threw caution aside to go to a meeting no one seems to know about. To clear his client, Nolan must win the highest profile trial of the last hundred years with very little working for him, and everything working against him. Marine One expertly mixes political intrigue with courtroom drama and fast paced action in the most exciting thriller of the year.

Falcon Seven

New York Times bestselling author James W. Huston returns with his most powerful thriller to date. Exploding with international intrigue, sizzling courtroom drama, and heart stopping action, Falcon Seven delivers an all too realistic tale of America under fire.A U.S. Navy F/A 18 flying over Afghanistan is suddenly diverted and ordered to bomb a building in Pakistan, where a meeting between al Qaeda and the Taliban is taking place. After destroying their target, the fighter jet is immediately hit by Stinger missiles and the pilots eject over Pakistan. They are captured, assaulted, and dragged through the streets of Peshawar. The world is on edge. The fliers are quickly forced onto a secret Falcon jet headed for the Netherlands, where they ll stand trial for war crimes at the International Criminal Court. The building they hit was actually a medical post constructed by Europeans for Afghan refugees and sixty five innocent people were killed. It’s up to Washington criminal defense lawyer and former Navy SEAL Jack Caskey to defend the two navy officers and get to the bottom on what is beginning to seem like an orchestrated event. The National Security Council pushes President Obama to employ the act passed under George W. Bush that authorizes the use of force to extract Americans held by the International Criminal Court. While the president initially approves a special operations team to grab the Americans, he later withdraws to cooperate with the ICC. Already fighting a losing battle for his clients, an outraged Caskey works with his contacts in the shadowy world of special operations and CIA operatives to free his clients himself…
or help them battle through an international show trial and face imprisonment for life.

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