Secrets of State, Palmer - B -

                                               Obviously, I've gone straight to the author's second book. This one is set in Washington, D.C. and Mumbai (Bombay).  The background information is on the conflict in Kashmir and the now almost seventy years of contretemps between India and Pakistan.  A behind-the-scenes American group called the Stoics (think of a Tom Hanks or John Travolta movie about blue-blood movers and shakers in a 200-year-old organization with ulterior and evil secret motives) is planning on using a Pakistan nuclear terror incident on the sub-continent to 'snatch' the Pakistan nuclear arsenal. This one feels a bit too speculative to be truly good.