Chasing the Wyrm is a spy novel in the vein of Ian Fleming's James Bond or maybe Craig Thomas's Winterhawk. It's got the girls, the guns, and the goons, but not necessarily in the flavors you'd expect. The hero is an inexperienced geek of a guy at the beginning of his world-saving career, so he doesn't get all the steps right in his high-stakes dance with the bad guy. The bad guy is a a nutcase with moves; he loves fast cars, ostentatious pistols, and a showboating approach to stamping out his enemies. The closet heroes of this book are the many soldiers of the US military, who are portrayed as heavy-duty professionals. Not the cardboard one-dimensional army guys of a Clancy book, though. These guys are ice against terrorists and insurrectionists, but understandably out of their element when confronted with werejaguars. Yes, you read that right. You remember that season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Buffy must deal with the Initiative? It's kind of like that, but with better technical advisors. And, of course, there's the Bondian super-villain planning to raise a dragon the size of a 747 in order to reclaim his homeland. Hint: he really hasn't thought that one all the way through. James Wilber gives us a rollicking good yarn in this wizard-spies meet wizard-freedom fighters meet wizard-assassins thriller. You wonder where your taxes go? Why the government spends hundreds of dollars on a hammer? Billions of dollars on airplanes they never finish? These guys, the OAA, are the answer.