Showing posts with label thriller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thriller. Show all posts

The Tiger Cruise Review

The Tiger Cruise
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Truly an exciting, spellbinding book. This author's style of writing is imaginative and unique. I loved the way he explains the "technotalk" to the reader within his characters. For example, when the professor at the seismo lab explains to his students what a deep focus earthquake is or how GPS is used to track earthquakes, he is, at the same time, explaining it to the reader.
The book takes off right from the start and keeps your undivided attention to the very last page. This is difficult for any author to do, much less a new one, and I commend Mr. Thompson for captivating his audience and not letting go. Just when I thought I had something figured out, a new twist or turn would pop up and I was again trying to figure out where the story would wind up. Believe me, it kept my attention where I did not want to put the book down. There are some very famous authors out there who tend to bog down the reader with too many intrinsic, technical details that can "break a story apart." Not true for Thompson. While there are plenty of technical details to go around in The Tiger Cruise, they are handled in such a way to just give you enough - and keep the story moving.
This is not a great novel, but it's damn close. I'll be looking for Thompson's next book, which is sure to come. Great job by a new, and yet unknown author, but not for long. Like the DJ in Tupelo said about Elvis after his first record, "this boy's going nation wide." So too is The Tiger Cruise, and Thompson.

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The nuclear attack submarine USS WOODBRIDGE prepares fora Tiger Cruise, in which 14 civilian guests of the crew will get tospend the night on board. Among the civilians are the Captain's twoyoung sons and a retired computer programmer. The USS WOODBRIDGE isalso spending this time testing a new state of the art SONAR system.In the dead of night, Iraqi Republican Guards sneak several canistersof the deadly anthrax virus across the border. The CIA learns of theirplans, when the Iraqis are forced to kill a NATO inspectionofficer. The CIA sends a helicopter to stop them, but the Iraqis plowone of their trucks into the helicopter, enabling the truck carryingthe anthrax to slip into Jordan.Meanwhile, seismologists on the East Coast are puzzled by the curiousreadings their instruments are giving them. Could there really be anEarthquake brewing on the East Coast? When the earthquake hits, theseismologists are at first relieved, only to realize that the quakewould create a series of catastrophic tsunamis. Shortly thereafter,portions of the East Coast are severely damaged.The USS WOODBRIDGE, rocked by the deep-sea earthquake, surface to findthat the naval base at Norfolk is unreachable. The new SONAR they weretesting had been rendered useless by the shockwave. To make mattersworse, their reactor is leaking. The Captain must send his own tenyear-old son deep into the engine room to seal the reactor, whileanother one of the Tiger Cruise guests, the retired computerprogrammer, tirelessly examines the SONAR's computer code to fix thebug.The Iraqis evade NATO officials and sneak the anthrax aboard a retiredSoviet submarine, captained by a disillusioned Communist who longs forthe good ole days. The CIA use everything in their power to track theSoviet sub, only to realize that the anthrax was actually stored on astealth mini-sub. The three-man mini-sub, headed the long way aroundAfrica, is undoubtedly headed for the United States...but the questionis: where?A game of cat and mouse ensues with the CIA, the Russian Sub, and theIraqi piloted mini-sub. After missing the mini-sub with a Tomahawkmissile, it's now up to the damaged USS WOODBRIDGE to save theday. Fortunately, the civilian programmer fixes the SONAR intime. Unfortunately, the mini-sub is equipped with the latestdefensive technology and eludes every torpedo the USS WOODBRIDGE canthrow at them. In a race for the coast, the Woodbridge must doeverything in its power to stop the Iraqi invaders.

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Tomahawk (Dan Lenson Novels) Review

Tomahawk (Dan Lenson Novels)
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I have read the other David Poyer novels featuring USN officer Dan Lenson. They are THE MED, THE GULF, THE CIRCLE and THE PASSAGE. I liked all of them because Poyer, a Naval Academy graduate writes well about men and the sea.
I had trouble with TOMAHAWK mainly because Poyer turns Lenson into (in my opinion) a very unbelieveable character. While I will grant the possibility of a career naval officer falling for a peace activist, I think the way Poyer writes about it is unrealistic and I think readers who buy the premise are simply naive romantics.
For those who have never served in the officer corps of any of the armed forces, let me say this. Dan Lenson's misgivings about the TOMAHAWK as a then new weapons system would have caused him a lot of trouble. Since the system gave him a moral dilemma, it follows that those doubts would reflect in his performance. The doubts did and his OER (Officer Efficiency Report) suffered.
To be sure, there is an incredible amount of waste in military procurement but, I really think that if LT Lenson had or developed moral qualms about the weapons systems the US Navy was seeking to develop and procure, he owed it to himself, his service and his nation to resign his commission and find another way to make a living. Most officers who leave the service do so for a variety of reasons. Some of them hate the OPSTEMPO, the deployments, separation from family, living conditions/low pay, etc. All of these are reasons retention of personnel in the military today is heading SOUTH!!!
I served on active duty and am now a member of the reserves and I found Dan Lenson unbelieveable in this book. If I served with a fellow officer like Dan Lenson, I would probably sit down with him and recommend that he find another career path because he was deliberately shooting himself in the foot. Well educated Annapolis grads like Dan Lenson don't do that. If they have a problem with the system, they make their recommendations for improvements; if they go unheeded, they either shut up and press on or they request a transfer. If the navy itself is what's getting to them, they generally put in their resignation papers and head off to greener pastures.
I just couldn't find any sympathy for Dan Lenson. If Poyer writes another Dan Lenson novel and I read that he has become an Admiral, I think I'll be sick. Dan Lenson is not Flag Officer material, not even with all the fictitious license in the world.The way it was written tells me that TOMAHAWK should probably be the last installment in the continuing saga of Dan Lenson, USN.

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The Devil Himself: A Novel Review

The Devil Himself: A Novel
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You get to know and care about historical, infamous characters who until this book, were enigmas. Jonah Eastman has a daunting but rewarding task of uncovering a little known but powerful operation that impacted WWII on American soil. You see notorious mobsters a little more as human beings instead of cold blooded mobsters and what they would be willing to do for the people and issues they held dear. On a bigger scale, you see political and military leaders do what they need to do in a time of crisis to protect their jobs and their country. It is like being invited to an elite club to be privy to their conversations. I couldn't book this book down!

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Force Protection Review

Force Protection
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I'd dearly love to give this novel five stars. Four hundred of its 403 pages are a pure delight. Taut, gut-wrenching, can't put it down thriller. The last three pages, unfortunately, take a lot of the wind out of the sails. They don't ruin the experience: just kind of diminish it.
Alan Craik finds himself in Kenya, sneaking a gun through customs while his colleague, a female special Navy Criminal Investigation agent blows through customs carrying drugs. A naval vessel making a port call is bombed and Craik is very much in the middle of things.
Kent is a superb writer; no doubt about that. He relentlessly builds the tension as the tentacles of an international plot envelop his wife, an astronaut in training in Houston and a Carrier Battle Group.
There are no flaws in the characters. The good guys and gals are good: humans, not super-heroes. Sometimes they catch a lucky break or think their ways through a dicey situation. Sometimes things don't work out and they wind up very dead. Above all, they are believable. You suck in your breath when they're in a tight spot - and there are lots of tight spots.
The bad guys are believably evil- and you hope they'll all suffer for their evil ways.
The plotting is just plain great. Nothing unbelievable, no jars that make you swallow your credulity. Except for the last three pages. I don't know if Kent needed to keep some characters alive for another book (many of the characters have appeared in his other novels) or if an editor slipped or what. But the last three pages just don't fit with the rest of the story.
But that shouldn't stop you from reading it, if you're a lover of thrillers. Like I said, this a five-star story. The only reason I knocked it down is because of the last three pages. Still a very enjoyable read.
Jerry

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Cyclops Review

Cyclops
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I thought that Clive would be hard pressed to out-do 'Raise The Titanic' widely considered his best work...but I've gotta admit, 'Cyclops' does it for me. It puzzles me how some reviewers seem surprised at the seemingly impossible situations Dirk finds himself in, and STILL manages to escape FROM, and STILL get the girl. C'mon! As one reviewer already stated, Clive writes seriously fun books, but doesn't take the story too serious that it cannot have fun in the process, and even though you might be crying 'foul' in one sentence, by the next, you have forgotten how implausible if not down right IMPOSSIBLE the story has become, and you just continue right on through because it was written for entertainment purposes, and THAT is what 'Cyclops' does in GRAND Style. Cussler has written possibly his best story (although I have to admit Atlantis Found is right up there) and given us a fantastic tale that will endure well beyond the years. Unlike certain forms of music, and clothing, Pitt will ALWAYS be in style.
As always, I enjoy feedback on MY opinions: rmgomske@lightcom.net

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Hostile Contact Review

Hostile Contact
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This was an exciting and enjoyable read. Although I read it before I read the preceding three novels, I had no trouble following the story, although I would obviously recommend prospective readers to start with the earlier novels first! A US Naval Intelligence officer, Alan Craik, has been wounded on a mission that went very wrong, in a which a fellow officier, George Shreed, was killed. Shreed was supposed to have been captured alive, since he is a suspected traitor. Craik is held responsible for the mission going bad, and has not met with much sympathy from his superiors, in spite of his injuries. Craik is given a chance to redeem himself, and the story takes off from therem with sizeable measures of intrigue and manipulation, both on the behalf of Craik's own side, and that of the Chinese, who were "running" Shreed when he was killed. I very much enjoyed the way that this father-son team of authors dealth with the Chinese in this novel! Oh man, Patrick Robinson could learn a ton and then some from this duo! And unlike Vince Flynn, these two get their airports and airlines right! While the characters are not particularly well developed, the plot is clever, action-packed, and fast paced, and remains exciting to the end. I recommend this novel with three-and-a-half stars.


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Black Storm (Tales of the Modern Navy.) Review

Black Storm (Tales of the Modern Navy.)
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In "Black Storm," Poyer subverts the conventional elements of military "thrillers." By underplaying, almost underwriting, the firefights, the political "big picture" background, he leaves room for what becomes a harrowing, deeply convincing, account of men, and women, in battle.
I have no military background at all, let alone combat experience. But Poyer's account of this fictional small-unit mission, by a squad of Force Recon U.S. marines with a Navy missle expert and a biological warfare doctor, during the Persian Gulf War rings true on every page. The achievement is all the more remarkable because his previous novels about the U.S. Navy today have usually been focused on naval and naval air themes.
Poyer captures the strange intimacy of a Force Recon unit, whose members may not even be friends, yet they must be willing to die for each other. As the mission progresses, the squad finally enters Bagdad, and the sense of physical and emotional claustrophobia is almost palpable.
The reader can share in the extreme isolation of these combatants, the constant pressure to avoid detection, to avoid battle, the obsessional nature of the mission objective -- to discover if the Iraquis have created launchable missles armed with a deadly smallpox variant, and if so, to destroy them.
By under-writing the traditional action elements, Poyer lets the characters, with all their flaws and doubts and problems, emerge ever more clearly, and surely, as the focus of our attention. Against all odds, the squad moves toward its objective by all means possible. Over and over again, we're aware of how things both great and small hinge on the decision, the choice of single member of the squad.
Often that is the squad leader, Marine Gunnery Sargeant Marcus Gault. In Gault, Poyer has created a remarkable portrait of the nature of small-unit combat leadership: "Black Storm" could almost (again speaking as a civilian) be a primer on the subject. As the team leader, Gault is continually facing and making life and death decisions, each one measured against the merciless standard of the mission's success.
But Poyer doesn't cast Gault, or any of the characters, in traditionally "heroic" terms. In fact, the character of a sociopathic, if not psychotic, British SAS sergeant, with whom the Marines make contact inside Iraq, acts as a mirror of how the same military virtues Gault displays have the potential to become monstrous.
It is the very "ordinariness" of Gault and the others that is so compelling: young men, most of them, with terrifying responsibilities. And yet..."they soldier on."
In the end we, at least we civilians, are left facing the awe-full mystery of men and women willing to sacrifice their lives.

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