ZACH TEMPLETON

Zach Templeton is a communications consultant.

Upon first meet, Templeton is a very stressed-out CEO of a small communications technology company known as Microwave Services based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The stress mentioned comes from a glitch in the system that Templeton's company is producing for the Department of Defense and since the DoD is the largest customer for MS, their unhappiness is flowing swiftly down to become his anxiety.

Tack onto that the fact that his wife, Angie, who had never really wanted him to go out on his own with his company and resented the large number of hours he has had to devote to it, has asked for a divorce and you have a man who is feeling every one of his 46 years and if his already thinning hair had been more available, he would have pulled it out himself.

To think that this was his dream job is to feel some sympathy for the man. It was his dream back in his younger days when he had been a Navy SEAL, a decorated member of one of the world's most elite special forces. His current life is more frustrating but a whole lot less dangerous. As he muses to himself, those days are gone. "No more midnight launches into cold, dark water from the pitching deck of a submarine. No more covert reconnaissance missions, or swimming up leech-infested rivers to save some downed pilot. No more slogging through steamy jungles to eliminate something or someone. No more parachuting into third world countries to do something the local government would not do and probably would not like if they found out."

Before too long, unfortunately for him as we find out soon into the first adventure, the current company stress and marital anxiety are about to be rejoined by that danger.

The two adventures which exist, so far, about Zach Templeton are chockful of characters, so many, in fact, that there is, thankfully, a list of them when their roles clearly shown. This is pretty important because while Templeton is the main protagonist in the series, shown by the books being labeled as "A Zach Templeton Novel", the spotlight leaves him quite often as the action takes place all over the world involving a whole lot of people. Be prepared to take quick peeks back at that list more than a couple of times.

If it were up to me, which it certainly is not, I would have spent more time with Templeton because I liked him even though the man comes across to me as not quite getting what his wife is saying. Then again, he is male. What can I say?

But back to the story - Templeton is a man with lots of problems on his shoulders and his best action days quite a bit behind him but when things get tough, he steps up.