Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Wednesday Nov. 12, 2003

Drummond’s boss, Maj. Gen. Clapper, has earned more than a few gray hairs supervising his nemesis, but the prickly old man is more likely than not to pick his cantankerous junior if there’s messy legal work to be done – like for some super-secret black program that has perhaps exceeded the fine print in its license to kill.

A retread from an early Army career on the line, which earned him a Purple Heart or two, Drummond’s independent streak and from-the-shoulder style make him a seemingly strange choice for a remarkable new exchange program with the private sector that allows military JAGs to get a taste of life in the fast lane of super law firms.

More remarkable perhaps is that the irascible Drummond is replacing his fellow-JAG girlfriend in the program. And, the vacancy at one of Washington’s highest priced firms has been occasioned by her untimely demise – the victim of an ostensible mugging attack in a Pentagon parking lot – while waiting for a tardy Drummond to show.

Her neck has been broken, and she never gets to chat with Drummond about something important.

Enter substitute love interest - the dead JAG’s brilliant and beautiful sister from Boston, who happens to be a hard-as-nails prosecutor.

Together the pair tries to unravel the apparently senseless tragedy, which becomes yet more senseless as the beauteous, dead JAG is joined in rigor mortis by more apparently random victims, who die under similar modus operandi.

Is a serial killer on the loose? Or is there something even more sinister going on?

When not engaging in sexual innuendo or comparing notes with the raven-haired sister, Drummond is busy alienating the partners of the high-powered law firm. If not engaged in verbal fisticuffs, Drummond is downloading this or that file or e-mail, trying to get a grip on what sort of mischief his dead girlfriend might have uncovered.

Enter the bumbling FBI with its own agenda, a vitriolic Alexandria Police Department detective, and a senior partner who had been fraternizing with the murdered associate - and Haig’s brew bubbles on at a good and entertaining clip.

The evil Specter element is offered by a telecommunications giant, the key cash cow for the expensive D.C. firm Drummond has been attached to. Seems the client is in some economic distress – and just may be doing more than the standard cooking of the books.

If this is not enough, enter the lurking underground world of money laundering and international crime cartels – which would think nothing of offing a meddling JAG or two.

Without disclosing too much of the plot, suffice it to say that the reader starts on a roller-coaster ride as the maverick JAG and his prosecutor ally meddle in the alien world of the stuffed-shirt law firm.

But there’s more than a paper trail to follow as the two interlopers weasel their way into the inner sanctums of the firm. Soon enough, Drummond himself becomes a target and must dodge his share of real bullets.

Seems the law firm has underestimated his legal savvy - he’s not about to rubber stamp some less than rigorous audits of the troubled telecommunications firm.

The hero wins the day with both his brains and brawn – facing down the firm and playing the legal game with even more alacrity than the brilliant partners.

And all this legal intrigue from a retired Army lieutenant colonel with all kinds of distinguished credentials. Haig, the son of Gen. Alexander Haig of NATO and Secretary of State fame, holds a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy, a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard, and a Masters in Government from Georgetown University.

Along the way, the novelist was Special Assistant to the Joint Chiefs, serving directly under Colin Powell and John Shahli Kashveeli in Kosovo and Somalia. He also drafted war plans for N. Korea.

His first novel, Secret Sanction, was published in the summer of 2001, and was a national and Washington Post bestseller. His second novel, Mortal Allies, was released in spring 2002; his third, The Kingmaker, in January 2003; and his fourth, Private Sector, in September 2003.

Secret Sanction has been optioned by Nicholas Cage and his production company for a future motion picture.

He now writes full-time, and works as a Fox News Military contributor.

And who says there’s no life after the military?

The reader will agree that Haig has certainly earned his wings in the private sector.

Editor's note:
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