Following the 11 “Declassified” paperbacks from the heart of the show’s run, three “24” hardcovers came out in the wake of 2014’s Season 9, “Live Another Day.” The first of the trio, James Swallow’s “Deadline” (2014), takes place in the wake of the chaotic Day 8.
I don’t remember all the details of the “Declassified” series – I recall that some were good, some weren’t – but “Deadline” strikes me as a cut above. It has all the requisite action – and Swallow writes entertainingly about car chases, fistfights, shootouts and not one but two buildings that go up in flames after Jack does his thing — but it stands out as a character piece. It’s also an essential story for the wider continuity, as dangling plot threads from Season 8 are resolved, notably President Taylor announcing her resignation after playing a part in the Omar Hassan assassination.
Jack’s agent skills serve him well, but in a pivotal – and arguably long overdue – decision, he’s done serving the United States government, which wants him dead, as does the Russian government. Jack wants to get from New York to L.A. to tell Kim he loves her one last time before he goes off the grid; the previous time he had faked his death, he couldn’t tell Kim, and it ate away at him. (It sometimes seems like the entirety of their relationship is Jack telling his daughter he loves her before he’s forced to disappear or go off on some deadly mission.)
In a nice Mystery Mine Ride twist, the Deadline of the title is a town in the Midwest that – after drying up with the closing of a military base – has been repurposed as the headquarters of a motorcycle gang that traffics in drugs and acquires down-on-their-luck folks to use as slave labor or, in the case of the attractive women, entertainment for the bikers.
Although there are plenty of scenes of FBI and SVR agents (both of which mix vengeance-obsessed leaders with a more responsible underling) tracking Jack, there are no CTU scenes in the book. Chloe O’Brian (whose name is misspelled as O’Brien) is mentioned several times, but she has already gone dark as a precursor to Season 9.
So the Deadline action is not merely reflective of one of those side trips that pad out some of the TV seasons, but rather it’s the heart of the book. It might be the most insane “24” concept ever, as London’s Swallow either has a crazy idea of flyover country or – more likely – he’s embracing the more extreme possibilities of the “24” saga, which is not known for strict adherence to reality. Like the Kurt Russell film “Breakdown” on steroids, the Night Rangers Motorcycle Club blatantly runs a slave-staffed meth factory in Deadline. Jack meets one of the captives, Lauren, and can’t help but intervene, even though her problem has nothing to do with him.
Lauren looks like Kim, but he says that’s not why he wants to help her. And I believe him; Jack is wired to help people. On page 259 of the hardcover, Night Rangers leader Rydell asks Jack why he is interfering in his operation. “It’s what I do,” Jack says.
Every time in “Deadline” someone holds a gun on him and threatens to kill him, he basically says “Go ahead.” Jack is a fatalist, but not suicidal. It seems like he’d be content with the idea that Kim would know his fate; it’s disappearing without a trace that would really tear up his daughter.
What really makes “Deadline” a pleasure are a couple of guest appearances. I’ll put a SPOILER WARNING here for the next two paragraphs for those who want the surprise preserved.
In the first case, Swallow brings back Chase Edmunds, who is Jack’s sidekick in Season 3 but then never shows up again. Of course, because of the nature of “24’s” unique narrative structure – where each season is an isolated day — that’s not a plot hole. But it does create a great opportunity to bring him back and flesh out his backstory and relationship with Jack. Indeed, giving Jack a partner again puts a human connection at the heart of “Deadline” and makes it less grim. I also like how the author uses the Valencia nuclear bomb of Season 6 to explain how Chase faked his death.
The second fun surprise is the return of Mandy, Mia Kirshner’s character who appears in the show’s very first episode and grows into the “24”-verse’s Boba Fett, a cold-blooded mercenary. Briefly teaming up with Jack due to circumstance, she provides a nice foil to our hero. Both are extremely good at their jobs of killing people, but Mandy was born to do this while Jack was bred to do this. Jack compartmentalizes his empathy (well, he tries to), but Mandy is a sociopath, so she no doubt sleeps like a baby.
In one of Swallow’s best insights into Jack, we learn he can’t sleep without having nightmares, even when he drifts off from utter exhaustion: “I don’t need to sleep again. Don’t like what I see in there,” he says on page 137.
“Deadline” is smartly structured, as it features 24 chapters, each of which covers an hour; however, there is no time stamp. Some short chapters in the “Declassified” books irritated some readers who felt it reflected lazy writing, so Swallow avoids that device completely, while staying true to the 24-hour premise. The author understands that a “24” novel can’t function like a “24” TV season, as there’s no way to pack an episode’s worth of detail and action into one chapter. But he smoothly repurposes the premise for this medium.