In the time between Book 2, A Peace Divided and this installment, Kerr has helped to establish the Strike Teams under the Justice Department as a force to be reckoned with. With the famed former Gunnery Sergeant helping to shape and drive the more militant branch of the peacekeeping department, even the revolutionary group known as Humans First is starting to be wary. In fact, the secret head of that organization has fled his prestigious position and gone into hiding, all but confirming Kerr and Strike Team Alpha's suspension of his role in the group. Unfortunately for Kerr, it seems that man is now bent on taking her out and decides to put a plan into motion that will cause more than a few waves in the Strike Teams.
To make matters worse, an old enemy makes its presence known and, in an attempt to gain the upper hand, Humans First triggers yet another set of plans to keep Kerr busy. Given their unique qualifications, Strike Team Alpha is the best group to deal with both threats, and that means they are forced to divide up and tackle them at the same time. In order to bring their numbers up to the required amount, newly minted Strike Team U'yun is also divided up. Torin, Mashona and Ressk head off in one direction on U'yun's ship with their pilot and several of the team's members, while Craig Ryder, Werst and Alamber take the Promise and the rest of Strike Team U'yun to the other threat. The hope is that Kerr can resolve her half of the trouble in time to join the rest of her team and stop the more pressing danger before it's too late.
Where the first two books in the Peacekeeper series each had one major mission for the team to tackle, The Privilege of Peace ends up having a few more events filling out its pages. The result is a lot more action, but also a bit less cohesion in the overall story. Everything that happens is necessary to get the characters from where they are at the start of this book to their final scenes, but each of the missions Strike Team Alpha finds themselves facing in this book is a smaller part to the overall puzzle.
By the time Book 3 wraps up, one of the threats that have been facing the Confederation appears to have been dealt with, but it's also clear that something more is brewing and doubts that first took seed in An Ancient Peace have started to sprout. How exactly this will change the Confederation and the role of the Strike Teams is something that only the future adventures of Torin Kerr can reveal.
Like I said above, The Privilege of Peace feels like the third part of a trilogy, in that it wraps up some storylines that were kicked off two books ago, but it's also clear that the Peacekeeper series isn't meant to be a trilogy as there are some threads that have only started to unwind. I look forward to seeing how everything plays out.
