Tag: Russia

Burner by Mark Greaney

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Five-Star Books, ThrillerLeave a comment

Burner Cover

Publisher: Sphere/Audible (Audiobook – 21 February 2023)

Series: Gray Man – Book 12

Length: 16 hours and 37 minutes

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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The epic and captivating Gray Man series by legendary thriller author Mark Greaney returns with another exciting spy thriller entry, Burner, which thrusts the protagonists into the middle of some major real-world events.

Nothing starts off the thriller field of 2023 quite like the latest Gray Man novel from leading author Mark Greaney.  Greaney is a very impressive author who has been killing it throughout the genre for years.  Not only has he produced some cool standalone books, such as last year’s exciting action romp Armored, or the cool military thriller he co-wrote with Hunter Rawlings IV, Red Metal (one of my favourite books and audiobooks of 2019), but he has also written the exceptional Gray Man spy thriller books.  Following legendary assassin Court Gentry, better known as the Gray Man, as he gets involved in several deadly situations, the Gray Man books are one of the leading spy thriller series and I have deeply enjoyed the epic and powerful adventures that Greaney has so far released.  I personally have had an exceptional time with several of the Gray Man books, including Greaney’s debut novel, The Gray Man (which got a film adaptation last year), as well as the later entries such as Mission Critical, One Minute Out (one of my favourite books and audiobooks of 2020), Relentless (one of my favourite books and audiobooks of 2021) and Sierra Six (one of my favourite books and audiobooks of 2022).  His latest release is the outstanding Burner, which was one of my most anticipated novels of 2023.  The 12th book in the Gray Man series, Burner was a particularly intense read with a fantastic story behind it.

Alex Velesky is a Ukrainian expat living in Switzerland, whose comfy life as a notorious mover of immoral money has been hollow ever since the death of his family back in Ukraine at the start of the invasion.  Going through the motions, Velesky is suddenly given an opportunity to strike back at Russia when a disenfranchised Russian intelligence agent provides him with a trove of secret financial data.  This data, when combined with information from his own bank, reveals all the Russian bribes paid out to the West, and could damage not only Russia’s foreign intelligence apparatus but also the delicate negotiations to re-open the Russian economy to the wider world.

Immediately targeted by Russians determined to kill him and reclaim the data before it can leak out, Velesky finds himself hunted throughout Switzerland.  His only chance of survival seems to lie in rogue intelligence officer Zoya Zakharova, a woman hunted by her former employers in both Russia and the CIA, who is determined to get him and his information to New York, where it can be deciphered and released.  But Velesky and Zoya soon find themselves being stalked by an elite unit of Russian military operators who have no qualms about killing anyone in their way.

However, the Russians aren’t the only people interested in the data, as the CIA wants to claim it for themselves.  Determined to keep their interest in it quiet, the CIA reach out to Court Gentry, the Gray Man, to capture Velesky before the Russians do.  However, Court is unaware of the full significance of the data he is reclaiming, and that he will have to compete against the love of his life, Zoya.  Soon caught between the competing interests of the CIA and Russian intelligence, Court and Zoya decide to work together to keep Velesky alive.  But with the dangerous data revealing dark dealings in the highest levels of government, can even these two legendary spies survive?

Wow, Greaney really can’t miss when it comes to the Gray Man books.  Burner was another exceptional novel that had me hooked from the very beginning all the way to the final, devastating encounter.  The blend of exceptionally written action scenes, spy thriller elements, complex characters and the utilisation of contemporary issues makes Burner really stand out, even alongside the other epic Gray Man books.  This was another easy five-star rating from me as Greaney once again shows why he is currently leading the spy thriller genre.

Burner’s story is a pretty impressive and intense thrill ride that takes the reader across multiple continents in a blaze of glory and excitement.  The book starts whilst the Russian invasion of Ukraine is ongoing and introduces the reader to interesting new character, Alex Velesky, who receives information about all of Russia’s illegal financial transactions from a disaffected Russian operative.  If he can take this information, as well as data stolen from his bank, to a certain forensic accountant in New York, he will be able to disrupt Russia’s international intelligence efforts while also weakening their position against Ukraine.  However, he soon finds a deadly Russian kill team on his tail, and is only saved by reluctant operative Zoya Zakharova, who eventually believes his story and attempts to get him to New York.  However, the Russians and the CIA both want the data, and this drags in Court Gentry.  On the run from the CIA and unsatisfied with his current job sinking Russian mega-yachts, Court is given a chance to get back into the agency’s good books by helping them recover the data.  This sees him engage in a massive fight in Caribbean, before flying to Europe to find and capture Velesky and begin searching for him and the Russians.  This results in a brilliant collection of scenes as the various sides engage in elaborate tradecraft to try and outsmart the others, resulting in a particularly epic extended sequence on a train.  The resulting carnage and revelations make for some exceedingly gripping content and sets the final third of the book up extremely well.  I protagonists are forced into a series of deadly battles on a tight timeline to achieve their goals.  There are surprises, shocking deaths, elaborate fights and the resolution of several character arcs, all of which wraps up with a particularly epic, split-scene sequence that ends everything on a high note.  I was engrossed in this exceptional narrative the entire way through, and it will be very interesting to see where Greaney takes this series next.

Greaney brings all his impressive writing skills to the table with Burner, and his ability to set a dramatic and powerful scene honestly turns the already outstanding narrative into something truly special.  While I did find a few pieces of dialogue to be a bit weak and robotic, and Greaney did decide to fit in the annoying trope that two women working together must be bitchy to each other, this was mostly a very strongly written spy thriller book.  Like all the previous Gray Man books, Burner has an outstanding pacing to it that quickly draws the readers in and ensures that they stick around for the entire ride.  The action scenes are brutal and have a great veneer of realism that ensures that you can easily imagine every punch, shot or stab.  The focus on tradecraft is a particularly fascinating element to the entire story, and you must love the multiple scenes that show the characters utilising their training to outmanoeuvre their opponents.  Greaney also brings in the perfect blend of intense action focused scenes and story building, real-world issues, and character moments throughout the course of Burner and there honestly wasn’t a single moment that I wasn’t hooked on everything that was going on.  Burner also proves to be a rather interesting and significant entry in the wider Gray Man series, which long-running fans are going to appreciate.  While Burner can easily be read as a standalone novel thanks to the author’s concise and effective description of prior events, this book does continue several interesting storylines from the previous books, including Court’s fugitive status, his relationship with Zoya, and the examination of both main characters’ places in the world.  Several recurring characters from the series also make their return here, including some entertaining antagonists, and I loved how Greaney worked them into the plot.  I had a lot of fun seeing some of these call-backs to previous stories and plotlines, and Greaney leaves this book in an interesting place for the future.

I really need to mention Greaney’s exceptional use of multiple character perspectives throughout Burner.  Greaney casts a very wide net when it comes to the perspectives being followed and while primary characters, such as Court Gentry and Zoya Zakharova, do get a lot more focus, you also see a lot of events occurring through the eyes of other characters, including several antagonists.  This gives the reader a much more expansive narrative that not only lets you understand the motivations of every significant character but also allows you to see how the antagonists are responding to the actions of the protagonists, which adds intensity to the plot.  However, the best advantage is the way that Greaney utilises these perspectives to make some of his biggest sequences really pop.  In these key sequences, the point of view constantly moves around the various characters as the story unfolds and this helps to produce a particularly intricate and powerful viewpoint of how events are going down.  This is particularly evident in the book’s best extended sequence where multiple point-of-view characters, including Court, Zoya, Alex, the antagonistic Russian hit team, a lone CIA agent and more find themselves converging on a train to Switzerland.  As the scene continues, Greaney keeps quickly moving the point-of-view around from one of the characters to the next, including a couple of minor characters who are mostly there as witnesses.  Watching every character’s reactions, moves and countermoves really enhances the power of the scene as Greaney first uses it to build up tension before the inevitable firefight begins, and then switches it up to ensure that the resulting battle is even more epic as you see every shot both sides make.  Greaney uses this excellent balance of perspectives through several of Burner’s key scenes, including the big finale, and each sequence comes off much better as a result.  I cannot emphasise how effectively Greaney utilised this throughout Burner, and it was a major highlight for me.

One of the most distinctive things about Burner was the excellent and memorable use of contemporary events to enhance the already enjoyable spy thriller narrative.  Greaney has never shied away from referring to current conflicts, politics and events, and in Burner he goes for the most infamous current conflict in a big way by strongly featuring the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Greaney pulls no punches when describing the conflict and he artfully and powerfully paints the entire invasion as the act of barbarism and greed that it is.  While no political leaders are names, multiple Ukrainian and Russian characters are featured throughout the plot and through them Greaney examines multiple sides of the conflict, ensuring that readers are fully aware of what is happening, who is responsible, and just how bad things are.  The Russian government are shown to be extremely corrupt, starting the war and then poorly preparing their own troops, all in the name of obtaining more money for the Russian elites to exploit.  This focus on corrupt money is a major part of the plot as the characters spend the entire book trying to identify funds being syphoned out of Russia to the West, either to escape sanctions or to be used for bribes or operation money by Russian intelligence.  The discussion about bribes to influential westerners is pretty interesting, especially as it seems to be a dig at certain politicians and news reporters, and it ended up being a very fascinating plot focus.  While it might seem a little insensitive to use a current conflict in a thriller novel, I personally felt that this was a master touch by Greaney.  Having the book focused on something that is such a big part of current world events ensured that I was even more invested in the story while rooting for the protagonists to succeed.  I really must compliment Greaney for using his book to shine a light on this conflict, and I feel that his warnings about how the war could end are very important.

I also need to highlight the great characters contained within Burner as Greaney brings back several of his best recurring protagonists, while also introducing some cool new figures.  This includes series protagonist Court Gentry, who has another outstanding adventure in Burner.  Court is his usual fun and effective self in this latest book, and it was great to see him utilise his skills and over-the-top abilities to achieve the mission.  Despite this, there isn’t an awful lot of character development around Court in this one, except for updating his status with the CIA.  Instead, most of the character development in this book was reserved for major recurring character and Court’s love interest, Zoya Zakharova.  Zoya last appeared in the 10th book, Relentless, which saw Court abandon her to keep her alive after he became wanted by the CIA again.  This had a major impact on Zoya’s psyche due to her previous abandonment issues and this, combined with the guilt she feels for being a former Russian spy, sends her into a massive spiral, and at the start of Burner she is an alcoholic, cocaine addicted mess.  A lot of her storyline deals with her attempts to move forward from her guilt, and she takes the mission with Alex Velesky to redeem herself.  Greaney does an outstanding job of showcasing Zoya as a woman in crisis, and I felt that this was an interesting and realistic jump in her character arc, especially after everything she’s been through in the series.  Naturally her life gets even more complicated once she is reunited with Court, which forces her to deal with some major feelings.  Greaney smartly keeps these two characters apart for a substantial part of the book and they are unaware of each other’s presence even while working the same case.  This means that when they finally do meet, the emotional pay-off is even more rewarding, and there are some great sequences with them as the story continues.  This ended up being a very substantial story for both characters and it was great to finally get some closure on the open relationship threads.

Aside from Court and Zoya, most of the other major characters are new additions to the Gray Man series, and Greaney does an outstanding job of building these characters up quickly during their initial appearances in Burner.  The most prominent of these is Alex Velesky, a Ukrainian banker working in Switzerland who ends up with the incriminating Russian data and is motivated to expose it after the death of his family.  Greaney frames an exceptionally good redemption arc around Alex in Burner as the character, who is feeling guilty for the years he’s spent illegally moving Russian money, attempts to finally reveal all the crimes he’s been apart of.  Alex’s entire arc is masterfully written by Greaney, and he proves to be an outstanding part of this book.  The other major new character was Angela Lacey, a rookie CIA operative who is sent to work with Court.  Shown to be a bit naïve, yet highly capable, Angela proves to be an interesting inclusion to Court’s mission, and he ends up become a bit of a mentor to her.  Angela is forced to grow up a lot in this book, especially when manipulated by her superiors, and it looks like Greaney has some interesting plans for her in the future.  Other great characters include a deadly new Russian assassin Luka Rudenko, slippery recurring antagonist Sebastian Drexler, and even Court’s old CIA handler Suzanne Brewer, who is up to her old diabolical tricks.  All these impressive characters add a lot to the plot of Burner, especially as Greaney takes the time to explore all their motivations and deeper secrets, and their inclusion results in some amazing sequences and confrontations.

While I did receive a paperback copy of Burner, I ended up listening to this awesome book on audiobook, mainly because I have had some great experiences with the Gray Man audiobooks in the past.  The Burner audiobook ended up being another excellent production that I managed to knock off quickly, even with a run time of over 16 and a half hours.  In my opinion, this audiobook format greatly enhanced the already epic story contained within Burner in several notable ways.  Not only does the action sequences really pop as you have them read out to you, by the format also works well to enhance the tension of some of the extended sequences involving multiple characters.  Just listening to all the players making their moves at the same time really drags you into the intense and explosive scenes and I was riveted through the scene on the train, or the final massive battle.  It also helped that Burner once again featured the exceptional vocal talents of Jay Snyder, who has lent his voice to all the previous Gray Man audiobooks.  Snyder, who was already one of my favourite audiobook narrators, has an outstanding voice that really fits the spy thriller genre.  His performances always capture the intensity, chaos, and destruction of any scene he narrates, while at the same time he manages to move the book along at a quick pace that really keeps the audience drawn in.  Snyder also has an excellent and fitting range of voices that he deploys throughout the audiobook, and I loved hearing the voices he assigns to some of the returning favourites.  His tone for Court Gentry fits perfectly, and all the other major player get some great voices with well performed accents.  All this ensures that the audiobook is an incredible way to enjoy the latest Gray Man novel and I cannot recommend the Burner audiobook enough.

I could go on more about Burner (trust me, I really could), but I think it is fair to say that I deeply enjoyed this latest Gray Man novel from Mark Greaney.  Greaney has been on a roll with his last few Gray Man books, and I honestly think that Burner is one of the better novels he has released recently.  The impactful story, great characters, compelling content and impressive writing ensured that I was enthralled throughout the entirety of Burner, and I honestly couldn’t put it down at times, especially during some of the big action sequences.  This was such an epic book, and I can already guarantee Burner is going to end up as one of my top books and audiobooks of 2023.  Highly recommended!

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Throwback Thursday: World War Z by Max Brooks

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Five-Star Books, Horror, Science Fiction, Throwback Thursday6 Comments

World War Z Cover

Publisher: Random House Audio (Audiobook – 14 May 2013, originally published 12 September 2006)

Series: Standalone

Length: 12 hours and 9 minutes

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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Welcome back to my Throwback Thursday series, where I republish old reviews, review books I have read before or review older books I have only just had a chance to read.  For my latest Throwback Thursday review I take a look at the zombie horror classic, World War Z by Max Brooks, a truly epic and outstanding read.

One of the biggest novels that I have been meaning to read for ages was the highly regarded zombie novel, World War Z, also known as World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.  Written by Max Brooks as a follow-up to his first book, the non-fictional The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z is a unique novel that fully examines a zombie apocalypse from multiple perspectives.  I had heard some great things about this novel, and I even enjoyed the movie adaptation when it came out (more on that later).  Unfortunately, I never got a chance to read it and I kind of figured for a while that it might stay in my to-read pile for a while.  However, it moved much higher up my list of books to check out after I read Brooks’s 2020 novel, Devolution, which was one of my favourite novels of 2020 (as well as one of my favourite all-time horror novels).  I had also heard a lot of praise for World War Z‘s awesome audiobook edition, so when my wife and I needed some entertainment during a recent cross-country road trip, this was our first choice.

Plot Synopsis:

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.

Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.

Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”

Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.

Holy hell, that was an exceptional book!  I loved the powerful and expansive narrative contained within World War Z as Brooks attempts to fully encapsulate the entire experience of a zombie apocalypse in impressive detail.  Literally all the good things I heard about this book were true, and I loved his unique and very captivating way of capturing the horrors of this sort of experience, both from the zombies and other humans.  An exceptional and impressively inventive read, World War Z gets an easy five-star read from me.

I cannot get over how awesome and distinctive World War Z was as a concept.  Rather than a traditional novel, Brook’s masterpiece is written as an epistolary novel, written as in-universe oral history anthology of a zombie apocalypse.  The book, which was compiled by this universe’s version of Max Brooks, contained multiple testimonials and interviews, as Brooks seeks out and talks to multiple people who experienced the apocalypse and pulls together their various unique stories.  This book contains around 40 individual stories set out across five chapters which look at the various stages of the zombie war, from its origins all the way up to the postwar ‘new normal’.

At this point I need to make a quick note about the version of World War Z that we checked out.  There are a couple of different World War Z audiobooks out there, but for our trip we listened to the World War Z: The Complete Edition, which combines two separate audiobook adaptations of the novel, and contains all the stories from the original book.  I did look over a paperback edition of World War Z before I started this review, and it looks like our audiobook version covered the full stories well, although I did notice that some of the stories were shortened or missing minor parts.  In addition, the audiobook version did not feature any of the paperback’s footnotes, which contained technical details and notes from the author.  However, I don’t think I lost out on too much of the plot from some of these missing gaps.

I really fell in love with the various individual stories contained with World War Z as Brooks went out of his way to produce the most unique and moving tales that he could.  These are mostly standalone tales, although there are a few interesting crossovers as the book continues, with some character’s mentioning events or supporting figures from other stories in their interviews.  However, as you follow the stories within these five chapters (made up of Warnings, Blame, The Great Panic, Turning the Tide, and Good-Byes), you get a full sense of the entire war, and it quickly comes apparent how cleverly Brooks was crafting everything here.  I personally deeply enjoyed both the individual shorter tales and the much larger connected story of World War Z, and I was deeply impressed with the excellent writing style behind it.  Brooks is a true master of writing deeply personal, character-driven tales of survival, and you swiftly become attached to the various protagonists as they tell their unique stories.  The action within is gruesome, fast-paced and deeply terrifying, and there are multiple over-the-top descriptions of zombie and human violence that will stick with you forever.  This was easily one of the best zombie novels I have read in terms of storytelling and action, and everything about this tale is so damn compelling.

As I mentioned, there are roughly 40 separate stories contained within this anthology, each of which contains its own unique protagonist, supporting characters, settings and unique circumstances.  Naturally, with so many stories you have a bit of a range in terms of storytelling, with some being substantially better than others.  However, I felt that Brooks did a very good job of writing each of these stories extremely well, and there were none that particularly dragged the novel down.  There is a real mixture of narratives here, with particularly gruesome horror stories mixed in with more human-focused narrative, political plotlines, military thrillers, stories that balance on the edge of science fiction, and everything in between.  The spread of these stories works pretty well, with Brooks providing an entertaining mixture of storylines throughout the book so readers aren’t constantly bombarded by tales of horror or tragedy.  Instead, there are often fascinating, humorous and humanising stories thrown in amongst the horror.  This works to make the entire novel flow at a fantastic pace.

While pretty much all these stories are fun and tell some outstanding tales of the zombie apocalypse, there are a few that stood out to me as being a cut above the rest.  I had some early fun with the Stanley MacDonald storyline, which showed an amoral illegal surgeon in Brazil unwittingly transfer a zombie heart into a patient, which led to one of the earliest outbreaks in South America.  The Jesika Hendricks plot showed a brilliant, if very dark, take on ordinary citizens trying to flee the zombies only to experience the other dangers of surviving the winter in a desperate community.  There are several amazing and cynical storylines, such as the Breckinridge Scott and Grover Carison testimonies that showcase the capitalist opportunism that surrounded the initial outbreaks.  I also really liked the South African focused storyline around Paul Redeker, which showed a former Apartheid strategist using his stark and brutal plans to save the country from the undead hordes.  I loved the particularly inventive and clever testimony surrounding the character of Arthur Sinclair Junior, which focuses on how America was reorganised after the initial stages of the war, with the country setting its sights towards industry, construction and warfare, which really highlights the author’s impressive insights into the world.

Two other fantastic World War Z storylines set in Japan focus on two unique individuals, one an “otaku” (a computer-obsessed outsider who tried to live entirely online), and a blind “hibakusha” (a person affected by the atomic bombs used in WWII).  Both characters were outsiders in Japan before the zombie war, but the zombie invasion changed their entire lives and led to them becoming renowned warriors and survivors against all the odds.  These two storylines are extremely compelling, and I loved the way that the author utilised unique subsections of Japanese society and tried to imagine how those sorts of people would survive the zombies.  There was also a really intense storyline, told by Admiral Xu Zhicai, that details a Chinese submarine’s attempt to escape the zombies with their families, which turns into a brilliant, powerful and occasionally disturbing tale of survival, loyalty and family.  I also must mention the Terry Knox testimony that details the actions aboard the International Space Station and the Darnell Hackworth story that looks at the US army’s canine units that helped scout and herd zombies (yay for mini dachshunds, the real heroes of this book).  However, out all the testimonies featured within World War Z, my favourite had to be the ones focussing on soldier Todd Wainio.  Todd battled the zombies at multiple stages of the war, and his multiple entries paint a pretty grim picture but are easily some of the best depictions of the horror of the zombies and the challenges faced by the armed forces.  His first testimony about the army’s initial inability to combat the zombies is very chilling, and it was fascinating to hear about the changes to his training and equipment as the military adapted to fight this new and strange enemy.  I am honestly just scratching the surface of these testimonials here, as pretty much all of them were great in their own way.  However, the ones I mentioned here were my personal favourites, and I had a blast listening to them and seeing how they fit into the wider narrative.

For me, one of the main highlights of World War Z was Brooks’s incredible inventiveness and insights when it came to envisioning a potential world-wide zombie apocalypse.  Thanks to his amazing range of stories, Brooks showcases a vast global catastrophe that impacts everyone no matter where they are.  I loved his depiction of how the apocalypse emerged, and rather than a continuous attack that pretty much destroys everything in a single day, Brooks imagines a gradual catastrophe that is initially ignored and mishandled before it spreads uncontrollably.  This is covered in the early chapters of the book with some substantial skill, and you really get to see how and why everything falls apart, with appropriate zombie violence included.  While there is an understandable focus on America, I found it fascinating to see how Brooks imagined different countries would deal with this crisis, with different culturally informed strategies, and there are even some compelling references to real-life figures (the Nelson Mandela facsimile reacts in a very different way than you’d expect).  The author really dives into all the details of a zombie attack and examines all the pros and cons of various strategies humans could utilise, from fleeing, staying in defensible positions, or fighting back.  There are some brilliant testimonies that cover all of them, and Brooks’s dark depictions of unprepared or overconfident humans failing to understand the threats in front of them and paying the price for it are shocking, bleak and captivating.  Brooks also comes up with some truly unique and clever problems or impacts of the zombies, many of which are referenced or experienced by multiple characters, including floating zombies, marine zombies, feral children who survived without their parents, looters, civil wars, and even crazed humans pretending to be zombies.

These intriguing insights from Brooks’s imagination are further expanded on in the later chapters of the novel, where the author explores how the world order changed because of the zombie war.  Again Brooks dives into multiple countries here, and it was fascinating to witness which countries the author imagines will be destroyed by the zombies and which would thrive.  I really enjoyed his examinations of the way that America needed to reorganise itself and its subsequent battleplans, which were perfectly covered by several of the best characters.  Seeing countries likes Russia, China, Japan and more change in drastic ways a result of this apocalypse was really cool and compelling, especially as the author covers it in such a reasonable and logical manner.  Countries like Cuba and the West Indies thriving due to their isolation was pretty fascinating, and they stood as an interesting contrast to more prominent countries that were disadvantaged or never stood a chance thanks to their socioeconomic issues or unsuitable landscapes.  I loved some of the unique issues that some countries experienced, such as the infested Paris catacombs or the mystery around North Korea, and they leave some intriguing afterthoughts as a result.  Brooks also cleverly examines other unique impacts that the zombies are having on the world, such as extinctions (goodbye whales), changes in global relations, and long-term problems, and I was deeply fascinated and enthralled by all this impressive thinking.  All of this compelling insight and imagination really enhances the stories being told by various characters, especially as they all impact humanity’s potential survival, and I really lost myself in the author’s powerful and impressive vision of a zombie apocalypse.

While World War Z is primarily about survival and the wider impacts of a zombie apocalypse, Brooks also takes the time to cover a few interesting themes.  In particular, he uses this novel about zombies to examine humanity.  While there is a certain overlying theme about the indomitable human spirit and our ability to triumph no matter the odds, there are some very noticeable depictions of the worst parts of human nature.  I found his initial depictions of most people ignoring or ridiculing the slow rising zombie threat to be pretty realistic (keep in mind that this was written 14 years before COVID).  There are also some major critiques about corruption and government incompetence in the face of disaster that I also found to be very intriguing and insightful.  Many of the early chapters that talked about military attempts to fight back had some interesting parallels to the wars in the Middle East, and I really appreciated the author’s clever critiques of these conflicts through the medium of a zombie war.  I felt that Todd’s testimony about the first major battle of the zombie war was a great example of this, as he regales the reader with how politically motivated leadership and incompetence led to a massacre.  All of this added a thought-provoking and entertaining edge to many of the storylines in the novel, especially the earlier testimonies, and I felt that Brooks did an amazing job bringing some of his own insights and critiques into his writing.

As I mentioned a few times above, I listened to the extended audiobook adaptation of this novel, which I personally felt was the absolute best way to enjoy this epic read.  Running at just over 12 hours in length, we absolutely powered through the World War Z audiobook during our road trip, and it served as an excellent entertainment for a long drive.  I often find that having a story read out to you really helps you to absorb everything about the story, and this was particularly true with World War Z.  Not only did the narration allow you to focus on all the details of the testimonials, but the horror elements and action felt a lot more intense, especially when you were dragged into some of the more gruesome scenes.  I also feel that the audiobook version of World War Z had a better flow than the paperback novel.  The testimonials with the audiobook are a lot more separated out, treated as a new chapter each time the narrator changes.  This is very different from the paperback version, which throws multiple testimonials in a quick fire manner, with everything crammed together into the five chapters.  As such, I really felt the audiobook helped to highlight the uniqueness of each testimonial and you really got to focus on each story a lot more.

However, easily the best thing about the World War Z audiobook was the truly impressive voice cast that were featured within.  Brooks, a voice actor himself, recruited a crack team of international actors to fill out his cast, including several A-listers, who give some outstanding and amazing performances.  All these actors really dive into their various roles here, conveying the emotion, fear and insights of their protagonists, and their great voice work definitely enhanced the already cool stories of their characters.  I deeply enjoyed all their voice work throughout the audiobook, and I know that I enjoyed several testimonies even more because of the talented actors voicing them.  This cast is led by Brooks himself, who voices the interviewer, asking all the questions and meeting all the various figures the novel is set around.  Brooks does a really good job here, and his calm, collected interviewing style and additional narration helps to set the scene for the entire novel and moves the other character’s stories along at a great pace.

Aside from Brooks, there are a good 40 or so voice actors featured in the World War Z audiobook, and I was pretty impressed with all their performances.  Some standout early performances include a brief appearance from Nathan Fillion as Canadian soldier Stanley MacDonald; Paul Sorvino, who gives a very fun performances as the sketchy doctor Fernado Oliveira; and Martin Scorsese, who gives an unrepentant portrayal of corrupt businessman Breckinridge Scott.  Other great performances include Kal Penn as Sardar Khan, an Indian soldier who serves an excellent witness to an act of heroism; the late, great David Ogden Stiers, who brings Ukrainian solider Bohdan Taras Kondratiuk to life perfectly as he watches a great act of evil from his government; Common as dog trainer Darnell Hackworth; and Rob Reiner as “The Whacko” a radical politician/former Vice President who shares his strong opinions in a very fun outing.  I really need to highlight some intriguing voice performances from Simon Pegg, who does a pretty good Texan accent in the role of Grover Carlson; and Alfred Molina, whose Australian accent was pretty accurate (a rare talent).

The performances of Masi Oka and Frank Kamai really brought to life the two Japanese characters I mentioned above, as does Ric Young for Chinese Admiral Xu Zhicai’s elaborate testimony.  I also really need to highlight the brilliant work of Alan Alda in this book as he voices pivotal administrator Arthur Sinclair Junior.  Alda, whose voice I have loved since M*A*S*H, perfectly inhabits the role of this intriguing figure, and I loved hearing his narration of how America’s economy was changed.  However, out of all the voice actors in World War Z, my favourite was the always impressive and remarkable Mark Hamill, who voiced standout character Todd Wainio.  Hamill was one of the main reasons why Todd was such a great character, and I loved his outstanding performance as a former ground soldier recounting all the horror of the front line of the zombie war.  There is so much weariness, trauma and cynicism in Hamill’s voice as he narrates Todd’s testimony, and you really feel the character’s resentment and anger.  The way that Hamill describes all the gruesome gore and zombie violence was just so great, and his impressive range and tone helped to really enhance the insanity and horror of the moment.  These voice actors, and the rest of the impressive cast, are extremely epic here, and they turned this production into something extremely impressive.

A quick final note about the World War Z film.  Until I read this book, I really did not appreciate how wildly off-book the film adaptation was.  None of the true magic from the original story appears in the film at all, as they turned it into a generic action flick rather than a clever analysis of how a zombie apocalypse would change the world.  While I did enjoy the World War Z movie on its own, it is a terrible adaptation, with only small elements from the book appearing in the film.  While I can appreciate that this is not the easiest book to turn into a film, they didn’t even try.  I really do hope that someone does a proper adaptation of World War Z at some point, as it frankly deserves a lot better than what it got (perhaps a television series with each episode recreating one of the testimonies).

As you can clearly tell from the massive essay above, I deeply enjoyed World War Z by Max Brooks.  This was easily one of the best zombie novels I have ever read, and it definitely deserves its epic and highly regarded status.  Brooks’s distinctive and brilliant story was just plain amazing and I loved the outstanding combination of smaller testimonies coming together into one connected and thought-provoking tale.  The author cleverly examines every single aspect of a potential zombie apocalypse, and you find yourself not only loving the insane horror elements, but the fascinating political and social impacts that come with such an invasion.  Best enjoyed in the full audiobook format which features so many impressive voice actors, World War Z comes extremely highly recommended and I cannot hype it up enough!

World War Z Cover 2

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The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Thriller2 Comments

The Apollo Murders Cover

Publisher: Quercus/Hachette Audio (Audiobook – 12 October 2021)

Series: Standalone/Book One

Length: 15 hours and 14 minutes

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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Prepare for one of the most impressive and complex debuts of 2021, with the exciting alternate history science fiction thriller, The Apollo Murders, by former astronaut Chris Hadfield.

In 1973, former test pilot turned government liaison officer Kazimieras “Kaz” Zemeckis arrives at Huston to supervise NASA’s latest voyage into space for their 18th Apollo mission.  On paper, NASA plans to send three astronauts to the moon, seemingly on a scientific expedition.  However, Kaz is also under orders to prepare the military astronauts on board for a covert operation to investigate the Russians’ recent rover mission to the moon as well as a secret spy satellite orbiting Earth that could give the Soviets an invaluable advantage in the Cold War.

As the crew prepares for their mission, tragedy strikes when a helicopter crash results in the death of one of the astronauts.  Forced to take on a new crew member at the last minute, the team launches and begins to make for their primary mission, the spy satellite.  However, the Americans are unprepared for the satellite to be manned by Russian cosmonauts determined to defend their station.  The encounter results in a terrible accident and a cosmonaut being trapped aboard the Apollo craft as it hurtles towards the moon.

As the American and Soviet governments argue over the unfortunate events, the Apollo crew attempt to undertake a moon landing with limited crew and resources.  Forced to work together with their Russian stowaway, the crew begins to descend towards the moon on an apparent joint venture.  However, back on Earth, the Soviet government is determined to turn this to their advantage by any means necessary, even if it means utilising a long-hidden intelligence asset.  Worse, it soon becomes clear that the helicopter crash that killed one of the astronauts was no accident.  Forced to contend with the knowledge that an Apollo astronaut in space might be a murderous saboteur with nothing to lose, Kaz and the flight team at Huston can only watch helplessly as events unfold and the future of space travel is changed forever.

This was a pretty impressive debut from Chris Hadfield, who really showed a lot of talent in this book.  Hadfield, a former astronaut known for his excellent rendition of ‘Space Oddity‘ filmed aboard the ISS, was able to construct a compelling and fast-paced novel with an amazing story to it.  Combining detailed science with a complex alternate history thriller, The Apollo Murders ended up being an excellent and powerful read that I deeply enjoyed.

At the heart of this novel lies a captivating and multilayered narrative surrounding a doomed mission into space.  Set in the 1970s during the golden age of spaceflight, The Apollo Murders follows a fictional 18th Apollo mission that goes very differently than intended, with fantastic espionage thriller elements combining with the science and historical fiction storyline.  Told from a huge range of different perspectives, this book initially focuses on the planning for an Apollo flight, which intends to both explore the moon and disable a Soviet spy satellite.  However, the story takes a turn when one of the astronauts is killed, and from there the story ramps up as the astronauts blast off into space while the other characters, both American and Russian, attempt to follow them while also conducting their own investigations and espionage missions.  The novel has an explosive middle, in which the American and Soviet astronauts encounter each other in space with disastrous results.  The consequences of this encounter lead into an epic second half filled with lies, deceit, sabotage and backstabbing, as two characters in space attempt to manipulate the situation to their advantage, while everyone on the ground, including Kaz, the astronauts, mission control, the Russians and a variety of other characters try to influence what is happening.  This all builds to one hell of a conclusion, with interesting consequences for several of the characters, and one surprise after another.

I really enjoyed this cool story, and I loved the fun blend of genres that Hadfield featured throughout it.  On paper, a thriller and murder mystery set around a fictional historical space flight seems a bit too complex for its own good, but Hadfield made it work, and the story is crisp and easy to follow, with none of the component parts overwhelming any of the others.  The reader is swiftly drawn into the story and it was fun to see everything unfold, especially as Hadfield ensures that you can see all the various angles and treacheries as they occur.  The author made excellent use of multiple character perspectives to tell a rich and captivating story, and it was extremely fun to see how the various characters viewed the situation and reacted to certain events.  Each of the characters featured in this novel is set up extremely well, and the reader quickly get to see their unique personalities, history and motivations surrounding the events of this book, which makes them extremely relatable and easily to follow.  While the identity of the person responsible for the murder at the start of the novel was a tad obvious, Hadfield uses this to its full advantage, helping to establish the book’s main antagonist, turning him into quite an arrogant and unlikable figure whom the reader really starts to root against.  It was really fascinating to see all the various character arcs and storylines come full circle by the end of the narrative, and The Apollo Murders ended up being a brilliant and compelling self-contained novel.

Easily one of the best things about The Apollo Murders was the incredible amount of detail about space flight and the science of space featured within.  Throughout the narrative, Hadfield spends an amazing amount of time explaining all the relevant science and technology that is relevant to the plot as the protagonists encounter it.  At the same time, the author also features a ton of relevant anecdotes or discussion about the history of spaceflight up to this point, which often serves to highlight the scientific information being provided at the same time.  All of this is worked into the plot extremely well, and the reader is soon given insight into what the characters are doing and the significance of their actions.  While all this information had the potential to be extremely overwhelming, Hadfield manages to dole it out in appropriate snippets, ensuring that there is never too much science or history in one scene, only enough for the reader to follow what happens.  This information is usually very easy to follow, and Hadfield’s writing style ensures that all the relevant facts are explained appropriately as the reader requires.  As such, the reader is never left confused at any point, and it leaves them open to enjoy some of the epic scenes.  I really must highlight some of the great spaceflight sequences featured throughout this book, including some of the epic take-off and landing scenes.  Hadfield really paints a beautiful picture here with his writing, and the reader gets a detailed understanding of every element of the flight and what the astronaut characters are experiencing or attempting to do.  These spaceflight elements are extremely well written, and I really must commend Hadfield for the work he put into making them seem as realistic and accurate as possible.

I must also highlight the great historical elements featured in this novel.  I rather expected this to be one of the weaker spots of the book, especially with so much focus on the spaceflight or the thriller parts of the book.  Instead, the reader is treated to a detailed and compelling discussion about the state of the world in the 1970s, especially surrounding the Cold War and the capabilities of both America and the Soviet Union.  A lot of this history relates to space travel, which is probably why Hadfield knows so much about it, and he uses it to great effect throughout the novel, giving the story an appropriate feel.  However, Hadfield also takes the time to examine the competing nations of America and the Soviet Union, and there are some brilliant scenes set in both, especially when it comes to the covert geopolitical battle occurring between them.  Hadfield portrays this period perfectly, and I especially liked his great use of multiple real historical characters, including politicians, NASA flight crew, espionage heads and even a few famous astronauts such as Alan Shepard, all of whom played vital roles in fleshing out the espionage elements of the plot.  While a lot of this book is based on historical events and facts, it is set around a fictional 18th Apollo mission.  This alternate history element is a fun part of the book, and I really appreciated the way in which Hadfield tried to envision how the various governments would react to such as disastrous mission to the moon.  I feel that Hadfield captured the political and social elements of this period extremely well, and I really appreciated this examination into history, especially as it combined with the thriller and space faring elements of the book extremely well to produce an outstanding and compelling narrative.

While I did receive a physical copy of The Apollo Murders, I was unable to resist the audiobook version, which proved to be really impressive.  With a run time of just over 15 hours, I was able to power through this audiobook quickly, especially once I got engrossed in the cool story.  I felt that the audiobook format was very conducive to following the various scientific elements featured throughout the novel, and I had a wonderful time imagining the elaborate space manoeuvres brought to life by the narration.  However, the main reason that I wanted to listen to this book was due to its narrator, Ray Porter.  Porter is one of the best audiobook narrators in the world today, and I am a big fan of his voice work in the thrillers of Jonathan Maberry (such as Code Zero, Deep Silence, Rage, Relentless and Ink).  Porter ended up providing an excellent narration for The Apollo Murders, with each of the various characters presented with a compelling and fitting voice that fit their personalities and nationalities.  While it was a bit weird in places to hear a voice from one of the other books I have heard him narrate, Porter was able to produce an excellent flow throughout The Apollo Murders, and the story swiftly moved across at a great pace.  This ended up being an excellent way to enjoy this novel and I would strongly recommend checking out this audiobook version of The Apollo Murders.

The Apollo Murders is a brilliant and powerful literary debut from former astronaut Chris Hadfield, who blew me away with this amazing first novel.  The Apollo Murders contains a fantastic and complex story that blends several genres into an exciting and clever read that takes the reader on a wild and thrilling adventure into space.  Featuring a deeply fascinating look at historical space flights and based around a fictional 18th Apollo mission, The Apollo Murders was one of the best debuts of 2021 and I had a fantastic time listening to it.  This is a great novel to check out and I cannot wait to see what Hadfield writes next.

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Assault by Fire by Lt. Col. Hunter Ripley Rawlings IV

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Thriller2 Comments

Assault by Fire Cover

Publisher: Recorded Books (Audiobook – 29 September 2020)

Series: Tyce Asher – Book One

Length: 10 hours and 11 minutes

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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From the military mind of debuting solo author Lt. Col. Hunter Ripley Rawlings IV comes Assault by Fire, an intense and action-packed novel that sees the Russians invade and take over America.

After losing his leg in the Middle East, Marine officer Tyce Asher believes that his military days are over.  Forced to babysit reserve troopers during exercises, Tyce is suddenly drawn into action when the Russians launch a sudden and unexpected invasion of America from land, sea and air, devastating the nation’s defences and swiftly gaining control of the Government.  With the bulk of the United States forces deployed to the Middle East, it falls to reserve forces, such as the one Tyce commands, to fight back against the invaders.  With minimal supplies, ammo, armoured vehicles or reinforcements, Tyce is forced to lead his combined regiment of Army and Marine reservists into the West Virginian mountains in order to regroup and avoid detection.  Recruiting what civilians, mountain men and veterans he can, Tyce forms an effective fighting force that has the potential to do some damage against the invaders.  Will Tyce’s small army be enough to hold back the tide of Russians, or are these the last days of American independence?

Assault by Fire is an exciting and entertaining novel that places the reader right into the heart of a Russian invasion of America.  This was a really cool novel from Rawlings, who first came into literary prominence last year with Red Metal, a novel he co-wrote with thriller writer Mark Greaney.  I was a major fan of Red Metal, as it was one of my favourite books (and audiobooks) of 2019, and I was keen to see how Rawlings’s first solo novel would turn out.  I ended up having a great time listening to this fantastic novel.  Rawlings has successfully utilised the always-intriguing concept of an invasion or war on American soil and ended up writing quite an enjoyable story around it.  Assault by Fire is the first novel in Rawlings’s Tyce Asher series and after how much I enjoyed the first book I am definitely planning to check out the rest of the series in the future.

This was a pretty good debut from Rawlings, who has come up with an intense and enjoyable modern military thriller novel.  Assault by Fire is a particularly fast-paced novel chock full of memorable and vivid action sequences that are guaranteed to get the readers blood pumping.  Rawlings makes good use of multiple perspectives, including from the point of view of several Russian characters, to tell a rich and clever story about a foreign invasion of the United States.  I loved some of the awesome ideas that Rawlings inserted into the compelling novel, and this ended up being a really fun book to check out.  I do need to point out that there was an occasional lack of consistency throughout the book which was a little distracting at times and some of the characterisations were a little weird or unrealistic.  However, these issues did not take away from the story too much and I think that Rawlings has the potential to improve as an author in the future.  Overall, this was an intriguing and captivating novel that is worth checking out.

I really enjoyed the cool American invasion concept that Rawlings utilises for Assault by Fire.  Russian invasions are something that Rawlings has explored before in Red Metal, with the Russians invading Europe and Africa in that novel while striking at US military targets.  Potential invasions of America have formed the basis of several intriguing novels and movies over the years (Red Dawn probably being the most prominent example) and I felt that Rawlings did an awesome job coming up with his own unique take on this story idea.  Throughout the book, Rawlings presents an interesting scenario where America is only able to be invaded after the majority of its troops are deployed to the Middle East, most nuclear weapons have been disarmed worldwide, and gun control has been introduced in America, taking away everyone’s assault rifles (I’m going to avoid getting into a gun control debate over the last point).  The way in which the Russians invade and manage to take over America is very cool and dramatic, and it was interesting to see how Rawlings, who apparently worked on several scenarios during his time working in the Pentagon, envisioned a potential invasion going down.  The initial invasion sequence is pretty awesome, and features several great scenes of Washington DC falling and other key locations getting hit, much to the surprise of the characters watching it.  Another aspect of this invasion scenario I enjoyed was the way in which the American troops were the ones who lacked resources and support after all their strategic bases and headquarters were destroyed or seized during the initial invasion.  This forced the characters to fight like insurgents and engage in guerrilla warfare, and there were several discussions from some of the veteran soldiers about using the tactics that they themselves had experienced while fighting in the Middle East.  Watching the protagonists adapt to this change of circumstances was rather fascinating, and Rawlings has clearly put some thought into how a war on American soil could actually be fought.  I really enjoyed some of the ideas he came up with for these fights, and I was especially amused by the use of some World War II relics in one major battle scene.  I do kind of wish that Rawlings had expanded the scope of his story to encompass the entirety of America and beyond.  While the events in Virginia and West Virginia were cool, I would have absolutely loved to see how the war was being fought across the entire country, and a story with multiple protagonists across America and outside of it might have been a little more impressive.  Still, I liked the way in which Rawlings explored this concept, and it made for a great story.

The real strength of this novel is the way in which Rawlings imports his substantial military knowledge into the story, creating a ton of amazing action sequences that really make an impression on the reader.  Rawlings clearly knows his stuff, as he provides a ton of details about the various weapons, vehicles, technology and tactics that the soldiers are utilising.  This added detail, as well as the impressive descriptions of how the armaments work and what they can do, really help to make the already cool action sequences even more vivid and you get a real sense of what a modern soldier experiences during battle.  A number of awesome scenes really stick in the mind as a result, from some excellent sniper scenes, a cool pitched battle with some historical technology and some particularly cool combat sequences between armoured vehicles that occurred towards the end of the novel.  Rawlings also ramps up the authenticity of the story by utilising a ton of military jargon and acronyms, so you get a real sense of being in the midst of a tactical discussion by soldiers.  The author also attempts to get into the head of the various soldiers, especially the commander, Tyce Asher, in order to show the doubts, fears and concerns that they experience during combat or while making command decisions.  I felt that all of Rawlings’s military experiences translated across into the novel extremely well, and it really helped to enhance the overall story.

I ended up grabbing the audiobook version of Assault by Fire, which was narrated by Graham Winton.  The Assault by Fire audiobook has a run time of just over 10 hours, and I was able to get through it in about a week.  Winton did a good job of narrating this fun book, and it was rather cool to hear the events of the book unfold, as the narration helped bring the listener right into the middle of the fighting.  The audiobook ended being a great way to enjoy this book, especially as the story clips along at a swift pace in this format, and I would recommend the audiobook for anyone interested in checking out Assault by Fire.

Assault by Fire by Hunter Ripley Rawlings is an awesome modern military thriller that places the reader right in the midst of a Russian invasion of America.  Featuring an impressively exciting narrative based around a cool story concept, Assault by Fire is a lot of fun, and readers can expect a high-octane, action-packed novel.  This turned out to be a rather fantastic debut from Rawlings, and I look forward to seeing where this series goes in the future.

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Waiting on Wednesday – Deep Strike and Assault by Fire

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Thriller, Waiting on Wednesday6 Comments

Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings. Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them. This week, I’m in a real thriller mood, so I thought I would look at two exciting upcoming military thrillers, which I am really looking forward to.

Until a couple of years ago, I had never really read any contemporary military thrillers. However, I’ve recently enjoyed some excellent military thrillers, including Red War by Kyle Mills, The Moscow Offensive and The Kremlin Strike by Dale Brown and Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger novels, and it is now a subgenre that I find myself really drawn to. There are several incredible military thrillers coming out later this year, such as Eagle Station by Dale Brown, which I have already featured in a Waiting on Wednesday post, and I want to highlight another two upcoming military thrillers that I personally think are going to be absolutely exhilarating reads, and I cannot wait to get my hands on them.

Deep Strike Cover

The first of these books is Deep Strike by Rick Campbell, which is the sixth book in his Trident Deception series. I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the previous book in this series, Treason, last year, and I thoroughly enjoyed the fast-paced story, excellent action sequences and intriguing military scenarios. As a result, I am quite keen to get a copy of Deep Strike, which is currently set for release in mid-August 2020, and Campbell has cooked up another compelling-sounding scenario for his new thriller.

Goodreads Synopsis:

A shoulder-launched missile attack on a convoy of vehicles leaving the U.N. headquarters in New York kills several diplomats, including the American ambassador. Security footage reveals that the killer behind the attack is a disgraced former special forces operative, Mark Alperi. But before U.S. intelligence operatives can catch up with him, Alperi is already onto the next phase of his plan.

With funding from the nearly shattered ISIS, Alperi plans an attack on the U.S. that will be more devastating than 9/11. He bribes a desperate Russian submarine commander with access to an expensive experimental drug for his daughter who is suffering from a rare disease. In exchange, the Russian commander will take his submarine to the Atlantic Ocean and launch a salvo of missiles at various targets along the East Coast of the United States. The commander lies to his crew that it’s a secret mission, with dummy missiles, for a training exercise. At the same time, unbeknownst to the commander, Alperi has arranged for four of the missile warheads to be replaced with four surplus nuclear warheads and arms them.

When the Russian submarine sinks the U.S. sub that is tracking it, the U.S. military is alarmed. When Intelligence uncovers Alperi’s plot, though, it becomes a race against time–find the Russian sub and sink it before it can launch a devastating nuclear attack.

Thanks to this epic synopsis, I have to say that I am quite excited for Deep Strike, and I really like the sound of this fantastic new addition to the series. Campbell has come up with a deeply intriguing plot for his new book, and I cannot wait to see how this compelling plot unfolds. This book has so much potential, especially as it looks like it is predominantly going to be set aboard several submarines. The author is a former US Navy Commander and submariner, and as such has an impressive amount of knowledge when it comes to submarines and underwater combat. This knowledge shined through in Treason, and some of the most memorable scenes in this previous book were set aboard a submarine, including several elaborate underwater naval combat sequences. Treason honestly featured some of the best examples of submarine-on-submarine battles that I have ever read, and I cannot wait to see what Campbell has in store for Deep Strike. This upcoming book sounds like it is going to be a lot of fun, and I look forward to grabbing my copy in a few months.

Assault by Fire Cover

The other book that I wanted to feature in this article is Assault by Fire, written by Lt. Col. Hunter Ripley Rawlings IV, which will serve as the first book in Rawlings’s new Tyce Asher series and is his debut novel. Set for release in late September 2020, this book has one of the most interesting and exciting plot synopses I have recently read, and I am quite excited for it, especially after how much I enjoyed Rawlings’s previous work. While Assault by Fire is Rawlings’s first solo novel, he previously co-wrote a military thriller, Red Metal, with bestselling author Mark Greaney, which was released last year. I absolutely love Red Metal due to its epic and invigorating depiction of a conflict between the United States and Russia around the world. It was one of my favourite books (and audiobooks) of 2019, and I cannot wait to see what sort of story Rawlings follows through with.

Goodreads Synopsis:

ASSAULT BY SEA
U.S. Marine Tyce Asher knew his fighting days were over when he lost his leg in Iraq. He thought he’d never see action again–certainly not on American soil–until the Russians attacked us by sea . . .

ASSAULT BY LAND
With so many troops stationed in the Middle East, the U.S. government is counting on Tyce and other reserve fighters to step up and defend their country–when Russian boots hit the ground . . .

ASSAULT BY FIRE
This is much more than a surprise attack. It is a full-fledged invasion orchestrated by a military mastermind hellbent on destruction. As the Russians move inland, killing and maiming, Tyce has to enlist every patriot he can find–seasoned vets, armchair warriors, backwoods buckshooters, even mountain moonshiners–to unleash their 2nd Amendment rights . . . on America’s #1 enemy.

Ok, now is this book doesn’t turn out to be 100% pure fun and adrenaline pumping action, I do not know what will. Assault by Fire has an incredible-sounding plot, which, just like Red Metal, will see the United States go up against an invading force of Russians. However, unlike in Rawlings’s previous book, this invasion is taking place on American soil, rather than in Europe and Africa. I love a good invasion story, no matter the genre, but I cannot wait to see how Rawlings envisions the Russians successfully invading the United States. I am also really looking forward to seeing the advanced Russian army facing off against a rag-tag force of American irregular troops, and it should make for a rather compelling guerrilla warfare scenario.

Honestly, after how much I enjoyed Red Metal, I was going to grab anything new that Rawlings released, especially if it was another military fiction novel. While I was kind of hoping for a sequel to Red Metal, Assault by Fire sounds so very awesome and I cannot wait to see how this story unfolds. I am expecting a lot of amazing action sequences throughout this novel, especially as Rawlings’s military knowledge and experiences helped make the battles and combat in Red Metal seem even more realistic. I am also excited that this book is going to kick off a whole new series, and I cannot wait to see what epic battles and amazing military scenarios Rawlings has planned for the future Tyce Asher books.

The military thriller genre is looking very strong at the moment, especially with two fantastic sounding books like Deep Strike and Assault by Fire on the horizon. Based on both upcoming books’ captivating plot synopses, and my positive prior experiences with Campbell and Rawlings, I am extremely confident that both of these upcoming books are going to be first-rate reads. I think both of these novels have a heck of a lot of potential, and I cannot wait to read both of them later in the year.

The Warsaw Protocol by Steve Berry

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Thriller13 Comments

The Warsaw Protocol Cover

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton/Macmillan Audio (Audiobook – 25 February 2020)

Series: Cotton Malone – Book 15

Length: 11 hours and 48 minutes

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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In the mood for an exciting thriller that not only features an intense, high-stakes spy adventure but also an intriguing and detailed examination of a nation’s history and culture? Then you are going to love The Warsaw Protocol, the latest novel from bestselling thriller author Steve Berry and the 15th novel in his long-running Cotton Malone series.

Former United States Justice Department agent Cotton Malone is now retired and enjoying his life as a rare book dealer and occasionally supplementing his income with some freelance intelligence work. In Bruges to attend a book fair, his holiday takes an unexpected turn when he attempts to stop the theft of a rare religious artefact. His interference accidently places him in the centre of a new conspiracy threatening to engulf Poland, one with massive global ramifications.

A notorious information broker has obtained a series of documents that reveal troubling secrets about the President of Poland, Janusz Czajkowski, and his past during the communist occupation of his country. These secrets, if revealed, would ruin the political career of Czajkowski and are the ultimate form of blackmail. With a controversial proposal surrounding an advanced American missile defence system in Poland on the table, both the United States and Russia want these documents, as do several other interested nations. The documents will be auctioned off in a secret location, with the price of admission one of seven sacred Christian relics located around the world.

Recruited by his former boss, Stephanie Nelle, Cotton attempts to steal one of the remaining relics in order to enter the US into the auction. However, despite the best-laid plans of the new President of the United States, the auction turns into a disaster, with Russian duplicity, Polish intelligence agents and a rival information broker all coming into play. As Cotton attempt to recover the documents, he is faced with severe moral implications, should he really be party to an American plan to blackmail a foreign nation?

Berry is an outstanding thriller author who has been producing consistent and enjoyable work since his 2003 debut, The Amber Room. While he has produced several standalone novels, his main body of work is the Cotton Malone novels, which started in 2006 with The Templar Legacy. So far, I have only read the prior book in the Cotton Malone series, The Malta Exchange, which came out last year. I really enjoyed The Malta Exchange and became an instant fan of the way that Berry combined exciting thriller storylines with historical conspiracy theories and deep dives into the history and culture of various nations. I have been looking forward to The Warsaw Protocol for a while now, and I even featured it on my recent Most Anticipated Books for the First Half of 2020 list.

Like the rest of the books in the series, The Warsaw Protocol can easily be read as a standalone novel, with absolutely no knowledge of any of the prior books required to enjoy the fun and exciting story contained within. Long-term fans of the series will definitely enjoy this new entry, not only because of its great story but because some of the events depicted are likely to have major repercussions for future books in the series. Berry makes excellent use of multiple viewpoints to tell this story, with several major characters getting a number of chapters to themselves, which not only show their actions in the current day but also dive into their own personal history and the history of the people or places they are interacting with. This leads to a richer overall narrative, and I think it was the best way to tell this complex story. Overall, I am really glad that I decided to dive further into the Cotton Malone series, as I found The Warsaw Protocol to be another fantastic and captivating thriller with some first-rate depictions of the complex nation of Poland.

At the centre of this book lies an outstanding thriller which sees the agents of several different nations fighting over sensitive material that could change the balance of power in the world. Berry takes this thriller storyline in some fantastic directions, and I really enjoyed the fast-paced and exciting final result. I loved seeing the past coming back to haunt people, especially as this allowed the author to dive back into Poland’s history when it was part of the Soviet Union. The Warsaw Protocol contains several excellent action sequences, although the book has more of a focus on uncovering the past and solving historical clues. I felt that the author’s use of multiple viewpoints worked really well to increase story’s suspense and intrigue, especially as you get to see the various major players react and enact countermoves against each other. I was a tad surprised that the author did not really do much more with the holy relics the auction participants needed to collect, especially as I spent a good part of the book thinking they were going to lead to some other great Polish treasure. There were also some other McGuffins and secrets that were mentioned or discovered throughout the book that didn’t really go anywhere either, and I would have been interested to see what impact they would have had on the plot if the protagonist had known about them. Still, this was an incredibly captivating piece of thriller fiction, and thanks to the fast-paced and exciting story, I had a really hard time putting The Warsaw Protocol down.

One of the main things that draws me to the Cotton Malone series is the way that Berry makes sure to dive into the history and culture of the countries in which his books are set. I really loved the in-depth look at Malta in his previous book, and I have a great appreciation for all the intriguing details about Poland that he features in his latest novel. Make no mistake, while this book does mainly follow the story of an American intelligence agent, The Warsaw Protocol is first and foremost a novel about Poland, featuring examinations of the nations troubled history and its unique cultural mindset. I am a huge history buff, so I absolutely loved Berry’s examination of these elements of Polish history. His major focus was on Poland when it was controlled by the Soviets following World War II, although he also looks back at the medieval history of the country as well. I found this examination of the Communist occupation of Poland to be quite fascinating, although Berry makes sure to point out the terrible circumstances that the people found themselves in and the lasting impact Communist control has had on the nation. The author sets up the seeds of the book’s central thriller in the country’s Communist past, and the resultant bloom turned out to be an excellent story.

In addition to the country’s history, Berry also attempts to showcase the social and cultural identity of Poland, while examining how the country’s long history of dissention, political upheaval and oppression from other nations has helped to create a unique society of people with a distinctive social mindset and way of life. Berry obviously has a lot of love for the people of Poland, and his examination of their national personality is quite intriguing. It is also another element of this book that works well with the overarching thriller storyline, as several of the point-of-view characters are able to predict how the general population of Poland will react if the information up for auction is released, motivating several of the characters. All in all, this was an incredibly fascinating and compelling examination of one of Europe’s most distinctive and important countries, and I really liked how Berry was once again able to use these captivating elements to produce an excellent spy thriller.

Berry also spends a lot of time bringing several iconic Polish locations to life to serve as backdrops for his story. There are some absolutely fantastic locations featured within this novel, including a number of major cities, some important castles, significant religious sites and even a world-famous salt mine. Berry has apparently spent a lot of time faithfully replicating these sites within his book, with some minor exceptions for plot reasons. The author really paints a vibrant picture when he presents these locations to the reader, and many of them sound like incredible places to visit (I personally would love to see the aforementioned salt mine after reading this book, as it sounds pretty damn awesome). There is also a rather fun sequence at the start of the book set in the Belgium city of Bruges, which the author uses to full advantage, setting a great chase sequence in the city’s iconic canals. There are also descriptions of several real-life restaurants, cafes and other such locations throughout this book, and it is clear that the author has really done his homework. Indeed, the author has even included a substantial notes section at the back of the book discussing the accuracy of his portrayals of history and locations. All of these are amazing backdrops for this fast-paced thriller storyline, and I really enjoyed seeing some of the action taking place in this amazing historical and cultural locations. Those readers who have been to these locations in Poland are bound to get a kick out seeing them so lovingly portrayed in this book, and I think that Berry did a wonderful job of bringing these places to life.

One of Berry’s inclusions that I found particularly interesting was the character of the new US President, Warner Fox. Fox is a brash, undiplomatic and ill-informed former businessman who practices cronyism and is generally painted as being an incompetent and unworthy President by the book’s characters. This sort of US President is becoming more and more common in thriller novels these days for obvious reasons, and I always find it intriguing to see what perceived impacts authors believe such a person would have on the intelligence community. In The Warsaw Protocol, the President is portrayed in an antagonistic manner, as Cotton Malone greatly disagrees with him and his methods. The President and his advisors blunder through the entire book, failing to listen to the advice of seasoned intelligence operators and generally make the entire situation far worse, while the other world leaders easily run rings around them. This actually becomes a major issue for the protagonist, as not only does it make his mission more difficult, but this new President ends up shifting the entire landscape of the series. I thought that this was a really intriguing, if somewhat horrifying, addition to the novel, especially as it is a potentially accurate depiction of how the current administration would interfere with or attempt to control intelligence agencies, and I look forward to seeing how Berry expands on this point in future novels (especially after the next election).

Just as I did with the previous book in the Cotton Malone series, I chose to listen to The Warsaw Protocol’s audiobook format. The Warsaw Protocol audiobook is narrated by Scott Brick and runs for just under 12 hours, allowing for a relatively quick read for a determined listener. I personally find that the audiobook is a great format to enjoy Berry’s books with, as listening to the story helped me appreciate his vivid descriptions and intriguing examinations of history a lot more. Brick is an excellent audiobook narrator who has narrated nearly all of the Cotton Malone books in the past and also provides his vocal talents to a number of other thriller novels, such as the recently released Into the Fire by Gregg Hurwitz. I find that Brick has a fantastic voice for thriller novels such as The Warsaw Protocol, and he is able to present the complex story in an enjoyable way, as well as provide some great Eastern European accents for some of the individuals featured in the novel. If I had to make a complaint, though, I did find it a little hard at times to distinguish between a couple of characters with similar voices, especially when they are having a conversation with each other. This was not a major issue; it just occasionally left me wondering for a couple of seconds who was talking, although it was usually made clear right after I had that thought. As a result, I would strongly recommend the audiobook format to anyone who is interested in checking this book out, and I personally loved listening to the story unfold.

Steve Berry has once again produced an incredible and deeply enjoyable thriller novel that utilises his trademark love for all things historical and cultural to create a fantastic read. The Warsaw Protocol does a wonderful job of combining an exciting story with an in-depth look at the vibrant, distinctive and at times chaotic nation of Poland, and I loved the final result. I cannot wait to see what amazing adventure Berry comes up with next time, and I fully intend to keep reading all the Cotton Malone books he brings out. This is a highly recommend thriller that I think a lot of people are going to enjoy.

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The Russian by Ben Coes

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Thriller2 Comments

The Russian Cover

Publisher: Macmillan Audio (Audiobook – 30 July 2019)

Series: Rob Tacoma – Book One

Lenght: 9 hours and 20 minutes

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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Thriller author Ben Coes returns to the world of his Dewey Andreas series with The Russian, the first book in spinoff series which sets the CIA against the Russian mafia in a violent conflagration.

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, some of the most dangerous and ruthless criminals from Russia emigrated to the United States in order to take advantage of the unique opportunities available there. This led to the creation of the Russian mafia, a group whose capacity for violence, murder and collateral damage knows no bounds. The Russian mafia are now the most effective and feared criminal organisation in the world, and conventional law enforcement seems unable to stop them. However, after elements of the Russian mafia organise the brutal assassination of two prominent American politicians, the President of the United States has had enough. Utilising a top-secret piece of legislation, the President authorises the CIA to run a small kill team on US soil. Their mission: kill those responsible for the assassinations while also taking down the Russian mafia by any means necessary.

Tasked with pulling together an elite two-man kill team to undertake this dangerous mission, the director of the CIA knows that his first recruit needs to be Rob Tacoma. Tacoma is one of the best killers the CIA ever produced, an operative without peer who is able to think on his feet and adapt to any situation. Tacoma is the perfect man for this dangerous and secretive job, especially as he already bears a hefty grudge against the Russian. However, this assignment begins poorly when Tacoma finds his new partner murdered by mafia hitmen before he even officially joins the team. The Russians already know what his mission is, and with his identity exposed, Tacoma is now being hunted by the entire Russian mafia. Can even this legendary CIA operative survive against a criminal army without rules, conscious or limits?

The Russian is the first book in the new Rob Tacoma series of thriller books. The Rob Tacoma books are a spinoff of Coes’s Dewey Andreas series, which ran between 2010 and 2018, featuring eight novels. Rob Tacoma was a popular supporting character in the Dewey Andreas books, and it’s interesting to see him getting his own adventures. I have had my eye on The Russian for a little while now due to its awesome-sounding plot, and I really wanted to read it last year when it first came out but I didn’t get a chance. As a result, when I was in the mood for an exciting thriller, The Russian was at the top of my list of books to check out. I ended up really enjoying The Russian as it has a fun, fast-paced story with a lot of action that I was able to power through in a very short period of time.

This new book from Coes features a rather intriguing plot idea of a CIA agent, and by extension the CIA, going to war with an organised crime group, the Russian mafia. I really loved this concept and I think that Coes did a wonderful job expanding it out into a thrilling and enjoyable story. The start of the book is set out perfectly, with the event that shows off the notoriety of the Russian mafia and prompts the President to set the CIA on them, presenting the reader with a pretty compelling start to the book. I appreciated the author taking the time to explore how the CIA were allowed to operate on US soil, and the explanation for this was a really cool plot element. I also loved the quick jump into the next part of the book, which saw Tacoma fall headfirst into trouble when the Russians find out who he and his partner are and send hitmen after him. From there you have a great, fast-paced story, as Tacoma works his way up the food chain of the Russian mafia to the very top. Coes does a fantastic job introducing the Russian mafia and setting them up as major antagonists. Not only does he examine the history of the mafia but he also explores the background of several of the major antagonists in the book, presenting them as real threats.

Among the highlights of this book were the awesome action sequences that Coes inserts throughout the story. In his attempts to take down the Russians, Tacoma engages in a number of gun fights and covert infiltrations to find and kill his targets. Each of these is a lot of fun to see unfold, and there are some really impressive sequences throughout this book. My personal highlight was an extended sequence in an airport, where Tacoma, in the midst of a busy crowd of civilians, must take down a team of assassins who are gunning for him. There were also several great and brutal scenes involving close-combat fighting, including some knockdown brawls between competing Russian gangsters, which of course Tacoma eventually gets caught right in the middle of. Needless to say, there is plenty in this book to keep those action junkies happy, and it I found it to be an enjoyable part of the book. However, readers should be warned that there are several gruesome torture scenes in this novel, which are probably not everyone’s cup of tea.

I felt that The Russian was an excellent introduction into a new major series for Coes, and I liked how he was able to change the direction of his antagonists away from more usual spy thriller targets and towards organised crime. While the author is moving in a new story direction, The Russian is strongly associated with the Dewey Andreas universe. There are a ton of references to the events that occurred in the previous books, and a number of characters from this original series are included, such as the titular Dewey Andreas. Coes does a great job of introducing all the relevant character backgrounds and previous plot events that the reader needs to know, and absolutely no knowledge of these prior books is required to enjoy The Russian. Still, fans of the original Dewey Andreas books will no doubt enjoy seeing how the universe has progressed, especially as The Russian includes a range of different characters from the previous book.

While I did really enjoy the story that Coes pulled together in The Russian, I did find that it was occasionally let down by elements of the author’s writing style. In my opinion, a bunch of plot points were repeated unnecessarily throughout the book and there were several inconsistencies in the book’s timing and characters that stood out to me. In addition, I had issues with some parts of the dialogue, which I found to be a bit unnatural in places. The above issues occasionally broke up the flow of the story for me and they were a bit discordant. However, I still really enjoyed this book, and I felt that the amazing and action-packed story really overcame some of these technical issues. That said, I did find that some of the book’s major twists were a tad easy to predict, especially the last one, which was tied into the background of Tacoma’s character and revisited several times by a bunch of different characters.

I ended up listening to the audiobook version of The Russian, which was narrated by Ari Fliakos, who has previously narrated one of the books in the Dewey Andreas series. The Russian is a relatively short audiobook which ran for 9 hours and 20 minutes. I quite liked the audiobook format of this novel, especially as it allowed me to get through the book really quickly. Fliakos is a pretty good narrator, and he was able to produce a number of excellent voices for the characters, giving many of them passable Russian accents. I did think that listening to The Russian on audiobook made several of the dialogue issues I discussed above stand out a little more, but overall this was a fantastic format on which to enjoy this book.

Overall, The Russian by Ben Coes is a fun and exciting read that I had an amazing time listening to. Coes has done a wonderful job spinning this book off from his previous series, and I really enjoyed the compelling and action-packed story that he came up with. At this point in time, I am planning to read the next book in the Rob Tacoma series when it comes out, and I am looking forward to seeing where this compelling series goes next.

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Red Metal by Mark Greaney and Lt. Col. Hunter Ripley Rawlings IV. USMC

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Five-Star Books, Thriller23 Comments

Red Metal Cover 2.jpg

Publisher: Audible Studios (Audiobook – 16 July 2019)

Series: Standalone/Book One

Length: 21 hours and 21 minutes

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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Get ready for World War III, because bestselling author Mark Greaney has teamed up with Lt. Col. Hunter Ripley Rawlings IV. USMC to create an absolutely incredible military thriller, Red Metal, which looks at how a potential invasion from Russia would unfold.

After years of war in the Middle East, the United States and their allies are preparing themselves for the next conflict. Many believe that this war will occur in the Pacific Ocean against China, especially after the Chinese begin to interfere in Taiwanese politics in an attempt to reunify the island nation with the mainland. As Chinese troops gather just outside of Taiwan and the United States military is rocked by a debilitating scandal, hardly anyone is expecting a move from Russia.

Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has been in an economic decline, and it desperately requires access to various advanced resources to remain a world power. An ambitious Russian colonel has come up with a complex plan to secure a vital Rare Earth mine that has the potential to secure the country’s future. Launching a high-speed and ruthlessly coordinated attack as Christmas falls, Russian forces stream across the border into Europe, crippling NATO and cutting the continent off from the United States. As America and NATO attempt to work out the extent of Russia’s plans in Europe and counter them, they are left distracted from Russia’s true goal as a second Russian army is secretly heading towards the African coast in order to reach the mine in Kenya.

As Russia continues its advance, the fate of the free world lies in the hands of several different individuals. In Washington, a veteran Marine Lieutenant Colonel and his colleagues attempt to decipher the Russian strategy before it is too late, while in Africa, a wily old French Intelligence agent and his Special Forces son must uncover why undercover Russian agents are abroad in Djibouti. In Europe, a mixture of unprepared NATO soldiers, including a young member of the Polish militia, an out-of-his-depth American tank commander and a high-flying US pilot must fight against the odds to push back against the invading Russian force. As epic battles erupt across several countries, one thing is clear: the world will never be the same again.

Wow, just wow. A few months ago, I predicted that along with The Kremlin Strike, Red Metal was going to be one of the top military thrillers of 2019. I am more than happy to report that I was 100 per cent right, as this was an outstanding read that I had an absolute blast listening to. The team of experienced thriller writer Mark Greaney, who is best known for his work on Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan Universe and his own bestselling Gray Man series (make sure to check out my review for the latest book in this series, Mission Critical, here) and debuting author Lt. Col. Hunter Ripley Rawlings IV. USMC, have created a sensational book that I have no choice but to award a full five stars to.

Contemporary military thriller is a genre that I have only started getting into recently, although so far I have enjoyed some great examples, including The Moscow Offensive by Dale Brown, Treason by Rick Campbell and Red War by Kyle Mills. However, in my opinion Red Metal stands heads and shoulders above all of these books and it is probably the best pure military thriller that I have read. The authors of this book have come up with a truly fascinating military scenario that sees Russia sweep across two continents and influence conflict in a third. The Russians in this book have a really clever and effective military strategy that results in a massive, widespread conflict, and the reader gets to see every step of it unfold. This entire plan seems exceedingly realistic, and it is clear that Greaney and Rawlings have put some real thought into how war could break out and how the various participants would react. They really dive into the minutiae of the whole scenario and try to cover all the angles of an invasion of Europe and Africa, including cutting off communications, setting up an alternate navigation system, hacking the US and creating a number of plausible diversions. Never before has a discussion about the different sized rail tracks and rail switching stations in Europe been so fascinating. The scope of this conflict is really impressive, and the authors do a fantastic job showcasing the various types of battle that would occur in this sort of modern-day war between major superpowers. As a result, this book is filled with fighting on land, sea, air, underwater and even in cyber space, in an impressive thought exercise which translates into a compelling piece of fiction.

I really liked how the authors chose to tell this story from a variety of different perspectives, as Red Metal features a huge number of point-of-view characters. While the story is mostly focused on a few key characters, a number of minor characters often get one or two scenes, and the reader gets to see how the war unfolds from both sides of the conflict. As a result, the reader gets a much fuller understanding of how this potential scenario would unfold and how various countries or organisations such as NATO would react to war breaking out. The authors also make great use of the various perspectives to ratchet up tension throughout the book as the readers are privy to the full extent of the Russians plans. This results in the reader being fully aware of all the mistakes that the Americans and their allies are making in this war, and by the time they get their act together it seems like it is too little, too late.

The use of various perspectives also helps to create a number of different characters that the reader can really get invested in. While many of characters introduced only have small roles in the overall narrative, the authors do some detailed explorations of the backgrounds and story arcs of several key characters. Some of these characters have really well-written and have some enjoyable or intriguing storylines. I personally enjoyed the story of Paulina, a young recruit in Poland’s Territorial Defence Force (a volunteer military reserve) the most. Paulina finds herself thrust into the middle of the Russian invasion and is quickly transformed from an innocent girl to a hard-eyed killer in a few short days thanks to the horrors of war. Paulina’s story is extremely captivating, and it is potentially the character that most non-soldiers reading this book are going to identify with as they are left thinking how they would react in a similar situation. It was really quite interesting to see what role people in the various scenarios could potentially play, and I really liked seeing what sort of difference a small group of determined soldiers could make in a conflict such this.

One of the things that I really loved about this story was the realistic portrayal of the various armed forces involved in this book and the detailed examination of everything that needs to be considered in a war. This book is chocked full of military terminology, descriptions of various weapons and tactics, slang, military history and a variety of other complex features. You have to imagine the inclusion of all of these details is largely thanks to Rawlings and his extensive military experience, and I really enjoyed how the authors were able to seamlessly insert all of this knowledge into the story. Having all this information as the story progresses is extremely fascinating and I learnt a lot of cool facts. It also really amped up the realism of the whole story, in my opinion, and I found the story to be a whole lot more compelling as a result.

It is important to point out that Red Metal is not the male character dominated, exceedingly pro-American story that some military thrillers are; instead the writers went out of their way to produce a more balanced story. For example, the book features a number of great female characters, most of whom are involved in the war in some way or another, and it was cool to see how women are utilised in the modern military. The authors also take the time to show Russia’s side of the conflict and explain their motivations for engaging in this battle against the west. While a number or Russian characters are pretty villainous and/or murderous, they do tend to have some reasonable motivations for their actions, and indeed they see themselves as the good guys in this conflict. There are also a few more pragmatic Russian officers featured in the book who are a lot more likeable, especially as they come across as a bit more compassionate and less eager for war and destruction. The United States is also not heavily portrayed as the world’s most awesome country, as some military thrillers do. Instead the country is shown to be extremely unprepared for a Russian invasion, their military command is initially easily manipulated and a response to Russia’s actions is hampered by politics or pettiness from a superior officer. That being said, the book does feature a number of extremely pro-American scenes and sentiments, and there is even a sequence where an American pilot flies into combat shouting “die Commie die”, although to be fair, it is described as a historical military mantra developed in the Cold War to help pilots time their length of fire. The end result of the conflict between America and Russia is also what you’d pretty much expect, but it still makes for one hell of a read.

While the authors have added some interesting depth to this story, at its heart it is a military thriller, and that means that this book is chocked full of action. There are a huge number of fantastic and extended battle sequences throughout the entire book, some of which are truly epic in their size and content. Readers are really spoiled for action in Red Metal, as the authors have included all manner of different types of battles with a huge range of different vehicles and weapons. This book features battles in the air, at sea, underwater in submarines, on the ground with the grunts and in a variety of locations with Special Forces regiments. There are a number of impressive and memorable sequences, including a large amount of tank on tank combat, as two enemy armoured regiments face off against each other. I personally really enjoyed a particularly brutal ambush of Russian tanks in Poland, as Polish militia attempt to defeat a superior force in the middle of a city. The main set-piece has to be an extended battle between a variety of Russian units, and a force of United States Marines down in Africa. This battle down in Africa is particularly impressive, as the authors do an awesome job of bringing the fighting to life, and the sheer chaos of war and the ferocity of both sides as they try to win through any means necessary. All this action is pretty darn amazing, and the authors really outdid themselves with it.

I chose to listen to the audiobook format of Red Metal, which is narrated by experienced audiobook narrator Marc Vietor. I am really glad that I picked up the Red Metal audiobook as it was an amazing way to enjoy this fantastic book. Vietor did an excellent job narrating this book, and I felt that listening to the story brought all the intense action to life and helped place me in the centre of the story. Due to the book featuring a huge number of different nationalities, the story featured a range of character accents, all of which Vietor did extremely well, producing distinctive and memorable voices for each of his characters. The Red Metal audiobook runs for 21 hours and 21 minutes and it is an excellent format to consume this incredible novel.

Red Metal is a tour-de-force from Greaney and Rawlings, who have produced one hell of a military thriller. These two authors are a potent writing team, as Greaney’s experience as a thriller writer and Rawlings’s military knowledge helps create an epic read that just pumps the reader full of intense action, clever storylines and memorable characters. I really hope that these two authors continue to work together in the future, as Red Metal was a really impressive first collaboration. Five out of five stars all the way, you have to check out this book.

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The Kremlin Strike by Dale Brown – Audiobook Review

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Audiobook, Science Fiction, Thriller5 Comments

The Kremlin Strike Cover

Publisher: HarperAudio (7 May 2019)

Series: Patrick McLanahan series – Book 23

Length: 13 hours and 18 minutes

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

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Bestselling author Dale Brown, perhaps one of the best current writers of military thrillers in the world today, returns with another exciting instalment of his Patrick McLanahan series, which takes America’s battle with Russia up into high orbit.

Following the recent defeat of his deadly combat robots in Texas, Russian President Geenadiy Gryzlov is desperate to strike back against the hated Americans. However, he no longer faces the inept US administration he enjoyed over the last couple of years. Instead, his failed attack on America has resulted in the election of a strong new president, John Dalton Farrell. With Farrell once again backing the innovative and resourceful private companies of former US President Kevin Martindale and former general Patrick McLanahan, Sky Masters and Scion Aviation International, America’s future looks bright. One of Farrell’s first priorities is the immediate resumption of America’s research into space flight and defence, resulting in Iron Wolf Squadron members Brad McLanahan and Nadia Roz being recruited by Sky Masters to head up their revamped space initiative.

However, the Americans are not the only ones with an eye to space. Knowing that Russia’s future world dominance depends on controlling the stars, Gryzlov has ordered the construction of a high-tech space station, Mars 1. Armed with devastating plasma weapons capable of shooting down every US satellite orbiting the planet as well as missile launchers that can rain down fire anywhere on the world, Mars 1 is an absolute game changer that will ensure Gryzlov finally achieves victory over the United States.

America’s only hope once again rests in the hands of the men of Sky Masters and Scion. As the Scion operatives attempt to determine a weakness in Mars 1’s defences, Sky Masters have created a number of advanced space planes and weapons that will allow Brad and Nadia to take the fight to the Russians in space. Will this new equipment be enough, or will Russia’s grip on high orbit propel them to a final, devastating victory?

Brown has been one of the best and most prolific authors of military fiction for over 30 years, having written 29 military thrillers in this period, as well as co-writing 18 books in the Dreamland series with Jim DeFelice. I only recently got into Brown’s books last year, when I read his 2018 release, The Moscow Offensive. After being drawn in by the promise of advanced military robots fighting it out in the American heartland, I fell in love with the awesome plot, intense action and analyses of real-world political strife, and as a result, The Kremlin Strike was one of the military thrillers I was looking forward to the most this year. The Kremlin Strike is the 23rd book in Brown’s Patrick McLanahan series, which follows the titular character and his allies as they attempt to keep America safe from a series of high-tech military threats. This book could also be considered to be sixth book in the Brad McLanahan series, as the overarching plot of the series started to focus more on Patrick’s son, Brad, in Tiger’s Claw, especially after Patrick McLanahan’s supposed death.

I absolutely loved the central concept of The Kremlin Strike, which looks at the potential of Earth’s high orbit to host the next major military conflicts that we see. This is not a new focus for Brown, as some of his previous books in this series, including Executive Intent and Starfire, have looked at the potential of space-born weapons. Before the story even starts, Brown makes it clear that he believes the United States needs to focus more on the possibility of a future war in space, and even includes some real-world news excerpts that look at recent advances in military technology that can be used to fight battles in space or destroy satellites orbiting the planet.

Based on this, Brown is able to come up with an incredibly intriguing military thriller that looks at the battles that could occur in the near future. I found it absolutely fascinating to see the author’s theories about how space warfare could be conducted, and the tactical advantages of having control of Earth’s orbit. While some of the technology in featured in the story, such as the Cybernetic Infantry Devices, are probably more advanced than what Russia or America can currently use (probably), Brown does examine a number of weapons and vehicles that are currently being tested in space. The various laser weapons, plasma launchers (OK, these are slightly less likely), missiles and other cool weapons or technology used in the battle in space make for some interesting reading. There were also some intriguing looks at the various limitations or downsides of the space technologies featured in this book, such as energy issues, fuel consumption or the gravitational backlash some weapons may experience. I especially liked how Brown was able to capture a more accurate view of space combat, with invisible laser beams rather than the colourful blasts you see in most science fiction movies.

All of the focus on combat in space is a superb basis for a story, and Brown backs that up with some first-rate storytelling to make this an outstanding read. The Kremlin Strike was an excellent blend of action, advanced technology and spy fiction that also has some intriguing mirrors to current world politics. The author tells the story from a range of different character perspectives, allowing for a widespread story that works incredibly well. I especially liked seeing the opposing views of the protagonists and antagonists, as it allowed the reader to see multiple sides of the overall conflict. For example, the reader gets to see the Russians plan their moves, and then you get to see the American countermoves. This view of the different sides of the conflict also works because neither the Americans nor the Russians have a solid idea of what the other side is planning. The reader is the only person who knows what is going on in both camps, and it is really fun to see the opponents slowly work out each other’s tactics during the course of the narrative, and then panic when they realise what their enemy is planning.

In addition to the combat in space, Brown also displays his detailed knowledge of modern warfare and military throughout the course of The Kremlin Strike. There are a huge number of scenes where modern military technology, techniques, strategies or standard operating procedures are featured, all topped off with a good helping of military terminology and acronyms. Brown utilises all of these extremely well, and there is nothing too overwhelming for readers who have a low understanding of the relevant jargon. All the action in this book is written incredibly well, and it was just plain thrilling to see some of the battles in the sky or in space take place. There were also some cool espionage sequences thrown in throughout the story as well, emphasising the benefit of human intelligence in current conflicts. All of these various aspects come together into a wonderful military thriller narrative, which proved extremely hard to stop listening to.

Another part of The Kremlin Strike that I enjoyed was the use of the fantastic prime antagonist, Russian President Geenadiy Gryzlov. Gryzlov has been a key villain in the last few books of the Patrick McLanahan series, and his angry, vindictive nature and his sheer inability to admit his own mistake makes him an amazingly easy character to dislike. I always find that a great antagonist can add so much to a story, and this is especially true in this book, where you can’t help but root for the protagonists and enjoy when the antagonist’s plots come to naught. You also cannot help but feel sorry at times for Gryzlov’s subordinates, who are forced to obey his wild orders, despite knowing that they will be punished when they fail. I really enjoyed a fun story development that occurs around this character in The Kremlin Strike, which I thought that Brown planned out very well, and which was one of my favourite highlights of this book.

While I absolutely loved The Kremlin Strike, the author has included a few right-wing political issues that might not be appealing to every reader. Right at the start of the book, Brown is very supportive about recent decision by the current US administration to form a specific armed force for space warfare, and this book examines the necessity of such a force. In addition, if you read between the lines a little, the US president in The Kremlin Strike, Farrell, could be a partial stand in for the current real-life United States president, while the previous incompetent president, Stacy Anne Barbeau, could be seen to represent this president’s real-life opponent at the 2016 election. Farrell is a political outsider, disliked by the media, whose tough talk and determination to cut through the bureaucracy of Washington (drain the swamp, if you will), won the support of the American people. The book’s apparent support of the current US president and some of his controversial decisions may be off-putting to some readers, although I do not believe that it harmed the entertainment value of the story. I personally found it interesting that in this scenario Brown once again painted Russia as America’s greatest enemy, which is something the current US president appears extremely reluctant to do, although perhaps I am reading into this too much.

I ended up listening to the audiobook version of The Kremlin Strike, which is narrated by William Dufris. The audiobook version of this book runs for a moderate 13 hours and 18 minutes, and I found it to be a great way to enjoy this exciting and detailed military thriller. Having only read Brown’s work before, I felt that having the audiobook book version playing in my ear helped ramp up the action sequences as well as increase the sense of urgency of the events occurring in the book. Dufris is also an excellent narrator, coming up with a huge number of great voices for the various characters that make up the cast of this book. The voices he attributed to these characters were really good and captured their personalities extremely well, such as, for example, the anger, ruthlessness and paranoia exhibited by Gryzlov. Dufris also did a good job with the character accents, continuing utilising a number of Russian accents throughout the book, as well as accents from other Eastern European countries such as Poland. I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook version of The Kremlin Strike and I think I will check out this format for any future books in the Patrick McLanahan series.

In this latest book in his long running Patrick McLanahan series, Dale Brown has once again created a first-class military thriller that is an absolute treat to read. The author’s focus on the future conflicts that may occur in our planet’s orbit were extremely fascinating, and the story created around it was a captivating and electrifying read. Easily accessible to those readers who have not previously had the pleasure of reading the Patrick McLanahan series before, The Kremlin Strike was a deeply enjoyable book, and a must for all fans of both the science fiction and military thriller genres.

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Treason by Rick Campbell

On By The Unseen LibraryIn Thriller3 Comments

Treason Cover

Publisher: St Martin’s Press (Hardcover Format – 19 March 2019)

Series: Trident Deception

Length: 320 pages

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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The world is once again heading towards war in the latest military thriller from Rick Campbell that sets the United States against Russia in a battle for domination.

After Russia’s last attempt to take control of the countries on their western border ended in disaster, the Russian military is eager for another invasion that will restore Russia’s place as a superpower.  However, even with America’s forces weakened after recent conflicts, Russian President Yuri Kalinin is reluctant to challenge NATO again.  His generals have no such reservations and initiate a sudden military coup, arresting Kalinin and taking Russia to a war footing.

America is once again ready to oppose Russia’s advance into Europe, until a routine weapons test sends several ballistic missiles hurtling towards Washington DC and crashes several of America’s B2 Bombers.  The Russians have apparently found a way to disarm America’s nuclear arsenal and are using this to keep the US out of the latest conflict.

As several European countries are overrun, America must find a way to regain control of their weapons and push back the Russians.  Their only hope may lie in the hands of Christine O’Connor, the President’s national security adviser, who was being entertained by Kalinin at his official residence when the coup occurred.  After freeing Kalinin, O’Connor hatches a plan to return him to power in exchange for an end to the invasion.  Can America achieve this with only one submarine and a small team of SEALs, or will NATO and Russia be forced into a destructive war for Europe?

This is the fifth book from Campbell, and it follows on his military thriller storyline that was started in his 2014 debut, The Trident Deception.  Treason follows on the storyline from these previous books, and once again sees America fighting against its iconic adversaries the Russians in an intriguing story of war, espionage and treachery.  I have been on a real military thriller kick recently, so I was quite excited to pick up Treason.  This book is an extremely fun piece of fiction that I really enjoyed and was able to get through quite quickly.  Campbell tells an entertaining story that, while connected to the storylines of the previous books in the series, is fairly inclusive and able to be enjoyed by those readers who have not had the chance to read any of Campbell’s previous works.

This is a pretty good example of military fiction, as two superpowers face off against each other for control of Europe.  The story is a great combination of imaginative storytelling and real-world politics, as Campbell is able to bring in elements of current international relations into his already established fictional version of our world.  This allows for some more realism behind the story, especially when combined with the sheer amount of military detail Campbell injects into the story, showcasing how both sides would prepare for and enact the early stages of a war to control all of Europe.  Treason is told from a huge range of different character perspectives as the author attempts to show as many sides of the story as possible.  While this does result in the book having a somewhat distractingly high number of quite short chapters, it does allow for a much fuller story, especially as it shows the plans of the book’s Russian antagonists.  This also allows for a story that is slightly less “America good; all opponents evil” direction that many military thrillers turn into, as the Russian characters’ motivations and perspectives are taken into account, although America does come out of this book looking pretty good.  Still, this is a very intriguing military thriller book, and I quite enjoyed reading Campbell’s view of how war between the US and Russia could potentially start up, while also leaving room for additional conflicts in future books.

While Treason does not turn into the full-on total war story action junkies might be hoping for, there is a substantial amount of battles and fighting in this book.  A large amount of the action is between covert squads of Americans and Russians, and it always fun to see SEAL teams kick ass against more numerous opponents.  Without a doubt, the most impressive sequence in this book is the superb submarine fight between opposing US and Russia vessels.  These scenes are pretty epic, and they really highlight the author’s writing ability as he drags the reader into the battle.  His quick change of perspectives between the opposing submarines means that the reader is aware of every action being undertaken and they get a spectacular view of the intense battle occurring beneath the waves.  Campbell’s past as a commander aboard a US Navy submarine clearly comes into play here, as he describes all the aspects of submarine combat in extreme detail.  This results in the reader getting an outstanding idea of the various tactics and weapons both sides utilise in these incredible battles, and it was amazing how the fight between submarines felt like a game of chess.  These extended submarine battles are easily the best sequences in the whole book, and I really loved reading them.  This book is perfect for those readers who love to read a good action sequence, and I am looking forward to reading any additional submarine battle scenes that Campbell comes up with.

Overall, Treason is a fantastic military thriller and well worth checking out if you are a fan of the genre or of Campbell’s previous books.  I am intrigued to see how the author will continue this series in the future, and I especially hope to see more of the superb submarine-on-submarine combat sequences.  Treason is a very entertaining and enjoyable book and is perfect for those who are looking for something fun and exciting to read.

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