The Doha 2040 Summer Olympics promise spectacle and grandeur. That illusion shatters fast. Twelve Lebanese and Israeli athletes vanish, seized by a shadowy organization known as the Obsidian Hand. Their demand lands like a thunderclap: a ransom of $500 billion. Veteran journalist Nova Mendelsohn steps into the chaos, and the stakes spike with every passing hour. The Olympic Village becomes her launching point, yet the real peril lurks beyond its perimeter. The desert holds secrets. Vengeance brews. Lives hang by a thread. Unless Nova unearths the truth, the kidnapped athletes will not survive.

Beneath the Rings, by Joe Battaglia, evokes echoes of Argo while carving out its own identity. Set in a near-future landscape that feels disturbingly plausible, the novel imagines a world only a few steps removed from our present timeline.

At its center stands Nova Mendelsohn. Once the narrative machinery locks into place, the spotlight rarely shifts from her. Intelligent, relentless, and remarkably resourceful, she becomes the ideal guide through this pressure cooker of danger. Readers may catch glimmers of Dan Brown’s puzzle-laced adventures or the high-velocity grit of the Jason Bourne films, yet Battaglia builds a narrative ecosystem all his own, one defined by crisp storytelling and an inventive delivery of essential clues.

Momentum never lags. Once the plot kicks into gear, it drives forward with remarkable speed. The mystery elements hook the reader early, while the dialogue sharpens the tension. Mini cliffhangers pepper the chapters, each one engineered to tug the reader deeper into the story. Putting the book down becomes a challenge.

The Obsidian Hand also stands apart from typical thriller antagonists. As their identity and purpose come into focus, their motives, while extreme, gain a faint, unsettling logic. This complexity grants the novel an unexpected emotional undercurrent, prompting readers to consider where justice ends and fanaticism begins.

The result is a high-stakes thriller with international scope and literary ambition, a potboiler elevated by thoughtful execution. Battaglia delivers a gripping ride, and further stories featuring Nova Mendelsohn would be more than welcome.