Arctic Drift, by Clive Cussler & Dirk Cussler

Clive Cussler is a big bestselling author in the United States. He pretty much follows the formula of James Patterson – who seemingly runs a bestseller factory – and writes basically with short sentences, short paragraphs and short chapters. And, perhaps even more than is the case with Patterson, Clive Cussler fills his pages with techno-action.

In Arctic Drift, Clive Cussler and his son Dirk imagine the U.S. and Canada on the brink of war. This is their third collaborative novel (after Treasure of Khan
and Black Wind), and they have the formula for success down cold. Cussler has created a world where NUMA is real and where saving the world is mandatory and as easy as turning the next page.

Here, the price of gas hits $10 a gallon, and US President Garner Ward must contend with a corrupt Canadian cabal that’s subverting efforts to solve America’s energy problems. Pitt barely escapes serious injury when a bomb destroys a D.C. lab along with records of research into an artificial photosynthesis process that could, almost immediately, eliminate the threat of global warming.

But despair not – Dirk Pitt is on the case. It looks very bleak, and events do certainly seem to escalate out of control. But the Pitts manage to connect the dots, and eventually the greedy guys are defeated and peace reigns yet again. Till next time.

Thriller fans in search of a quick, exciting read should be satisfied. There is lots of breathtaking suspense and audacious imagination in Arctic Drift, as in all the books in the Pitt series. And, yes, it is entertaining. As it were.

Praise:

‘the action zipping along until a final powerhouse showdown’ (Entertainment Weekly).

‘What’s not to like?’ (Los Angeles Times)

The Dogs of War, by Frederick Forsyth

A few days ago I happened upon this classic thriller by Frederich Forsyth, originially published in 1974. It is a great book, very exciting and suspenseful. The plot in The Dogs of War is centered on a tycoon that discovers a mountain of platinum in the remote African republic of  Zangaro. This discovery causes Sir James Manson, a smooth and very ruthless tycoon, to hire an army of mercenaries to topple the government and replace its dictator with a puppet president. But the situation develops into a terrifying power game. And, of course, as Sunday Mirror wrote: “Enormous and convincing detail, and a shattering climax”.

In The Dogs of War, Forsyth clearly material of particular relevance at the time of writing. There were strong rumors at the time, and some evidence too, that with the right contacts and enough money, mercenaries specialized in coups d’etat could be hired to topple governments. Indeed, some rumors even implicated mr. Forsyth in such a plot! It is still not clear, I think, whether he was or not.

Regardless, The Dogs of War is a high quality thriller that still is very well worth reading. It is a book that shows why Frederich Forsyth made such a name for himself as a thriller writer. As you will see if you read the book, Forsyth was simply excellent when he was at his best. The Dogs of War is a must for any thriller-loving reader!

Corsair, by Clive Cussler and Jack Dubrul

This is the sixth novel in the Oregon Files series by Clive Cussler and co-authors. To my mind, this series seems to be written much in the fashion and style of the James Patterson thriller factory. That is, plot by Cussler, actual writing by Jack Du Brul. And with a similar recipe for success as well: Lots of action, a huge plot, pretty short chapters, preferably short paragraphs, and short, sweet sentences. It seems to work – both Cussler and Peterson write books that are bestsellers in the US.

In Corsair, Juan Cabrillo, the Corporation, and the Oregon are at it again. The Oregon is a vessel that viewed from the outside appears to be old, somewhat in disrepair and weak, but which in reality is heavily armored and full of sophisticated equipment and powerful weaponry. And the technology plays a significant role in the book.

It starts with a prologue set during the Barbary pirate war and a tale of a pirate fortune. It continues with the Oregon raiding a modern day pirate stronghold in order to capture a pirate leader out of a heavily defended port.

But the real action in Corsair, its main storyline, starts when the United States’ Secretary of State’s plane crashes under mysterious circumstances on the way to Libya. And the action is fast, furious and impressive. It is quite interesting and entertaining. Even though you really have let go of logic and go with the flow of the book pretty often in order to fully enjoy. But if you can do that, than this book is very entertaining.

Du Brul and Cussler weave great although sometime pretty wild plotlines, and they are good at mixing in “facts” in lots of shapes and forms – history, religion, and politics. To me, the plot was moderately or so engaging. And at some spots, even in this adventure filled action novel, things were a little too slow and the side stories a tad boring. But even so, Corsair is an above-average adventure story, and quite ok for a relaxing reading of a technological adventure.

Nothing to Lose, by Lee Child

It was a coincidence that I picked up this book. I was at the library to pick up some books. While I was waiting, I saw it lying there. So I picked it up. Looked at it and borrowed it. And later I read all the other books I had waiting for me. Finally I started on Lee Child’s book with the boring cover.

And reading it, at first I thought it was simply odd. A lone hero walking into trouble for no apparent reason other than his stubbornness. Walking from the strange city of Hope into the even stranger city of Destiny. It all seemed odd to. Simply.

But I continued to read, curious as I am. And gradually the book grew on me. Partly because I wanted to find out what was going on – thinking there had to be something more. Partly because this represented to me a kind of new genre of thriller. A bare bones, no frills thriller if you want. No spying, no agents, no super duper huge or advanced or whatever organization. Just a guy. And, admittedly, a somewhat strange guy. Named Jack Reacher.

Later I have read up on the book, the author and the series. I have noted that a book reviewer in New York Times, Janet Maslin, calls Jack Reacher a “minimalist character”. I think that is an apt description. He is minimalist. The thriller is minimalist!

But Child’s Reacher is actually, when you get to know him, an utterly addictive hero. He is a 6 feet 5 inches ex-military cop that excels in unarmed combat, and he is as cool as a cucumber. He may get a little worried when he is up against six guys in a bar, and start to ponder their combined body weight relative to his and such things. But he delivers the goods. And, as well, his powers of deduction are second to none and a joy to observe!

So, yeah, I liked this guy. I liked the way Reacher dealt with power abuse, crime and corruption. And I liked the way he dealt with a disgusting born-again businessman impatient for apocalypse.

I don’t actually think this is the best book in the series, having now read several of them. But it is more than good enough, and quite spectacular in it minimalism. Nothing to Lose is a book I recommend!

Rules of Deception, by Christopher Reich

Sometimes even I get lucky. I was when I stumbled across this book. Even though I have read much too many thrillers, I had never even heard about Christopher Reich. But one day the book was right in front of my face, simply. So I opened it, looked a little, and decided it might be worth reading.

Then I picked it up and started reading the same evening. And it just sucked me right in. The prologue and the first chapter are masterful, and more or less make it impossible to stop reading beyond that point. I have to admit I was late getting to be the next morning. But the book really did live up to the expectations it initially created.

The prologue is extremely ominous: There is a butterfly flying around above a high-security compound surrounded by a barbed wire in an unknown location. Then it turns out the butterfly a mechanical device carrying a mini-microwave transmitter. Then a guard says: “They have found us.”

Rules of Deception tells the story of a smart, resourceful and courageous doctor named Jonathan Ransom. Dr. Ransom is a surgeon who works for Doctors Without. He is a happily married man with a beautiful English wife, Emma, whom he loves. Life is good. Then Emma dies in an accident.

A few days later, some baggage claim tickets are delivered to his hotel room. They were for his wife. Not knowing what they are for, Ransom goes to claim them. The content of bags makes it clear that his wife was not at all the person he believed her to be. Suddenly Jonathan finds that his has known very little about his wife, and that his life has not at all been what it seems. As a matter of fact, his life is seemingly a big pile of lies. And now he finds himself right in the middle of the pile, trying to make sense and fighting to stay alive. In fact, it seems Jonathan’s only chance at survival lies in uncovering the devastating truth behind his wife’s secret life.

The plot in Rules of Deception is intricate and has multiple layers and the chapters are short and to the point. And the action is fast and often surprising. I found it a great thriller, full of excitement. Most certainly a writer I will read more of and watch out for!

Critical Mass, by Whitley Strieber

This is an overheated thriller based on a somewhat unlikely – but still interesting – scenario about nuclear terrorism by bestselling author Whitley Strieber (see also 2012: The War for Souls). The main character in the book is Jim Deutsch, a CIA contract employee, who has expertise in counter-proliferation work. He discovers that nuclear devices have been smuggled into the US. While investigating, he finds himself facing roadblocks at every turn, forcing him not to trust anyone. It seems America’s elaborate homeland security apparatus has been compromised.

Then, while Deutsch is still trying to make his report, Las Vegas is bombed and completely wiped out. As it turns out, the fate of the entire world seems to now be in the hands of an unknown Islamic terror organization, headed by a master-terrorist known only as the Madhi.

U.S. president William Fitzgerald is faced with the choice of launching a devastating counterattack aimed at much of the Muslim world, or surrendering to the Madhi, or trying to find the exact location of the threat. And the clock is running, and the deadline approaching.

Strieber is a good writer and knows very well how to build suspense. So, if you are willing to suspend belief a little, and allow that the scenario of Critical Mass is a possible scenario, then this is an exceedingly exciting thriller!

The author: Whitley Strieber is the author of over 30 novels, including the Wolfen, the Hunger, Warday, Communion, Superstorm, The Grays and 2012. The Wolfen, the Hunger, Communion, and Superstorm (as the Day After Tomorrow) were all made into films, and the Grays and 2012 are in preproduction at Sony and Warner Bros. respectively.

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube DirektPromo video of the book

The Fire, by Katherine Neville

This is the sequel to the super-hit novel, The Eight, released more than a decade. I liked The Eight a lot, so I have read all her books since then. But so far, the other books have not been nearly as good. Unfortunately, this is true for The Fire as well. This book, like The Eight, is a filled to overflowing with the essences of history, mystery, chess and intrigue. But it is not integrated in the same convoluted and elegant way. And, besides, why does Neville insist on sticking to the same formula yet again?

The Fire starts out in 2003, in Colorado, where Alexandra Solarin is summoned home to her family’s ancestral Rocky Mountain hideaway for her mother’s birthday. When Alexandra arrives at her mother’s retreat, she finds that she must solve a puzzle to get into the deserted house. It is the first of many puzzles in a danger-crammed, picaresque narrative involving a legendary chess set.

Many characters from The Eight reappear, but the focus now is on Xie, a 12-year-old chess prodigy who has lost a pivotal game due to Amaurosis Scacchistica, or chess blindness.

En route to a rematch that could make her the youngest grandmaster ever, she and her father encounter even greater dangers: evidence that one of those long-buried pieces may have been unearthed, a discovery that leads to her father’s murder. Ten years later, Xie, now forbidden by her mother to play chess, is summoned to Colorado for her mother’s birthday party, but her mother seems to have vanished, leaving behind a series of clues, among them a chessboard laid out with Xie’s last game. Soon other guests arrive, including both the opponent to whom Xie lost that game and a group of neighbors with surprising ties to the world of chess. There are eight people in all, of course. And The Game is on again.

The Game is a quest for a mystical chess service that once belonged to Charlemagne, it spans two centuries and three continents, and intertwines historic and modern plots, archaeological treasure hunts, esoteric riddles, and puzzles encrypted with clues from the ancient past.

It is a book I think many of the fans of The Eight, like me, will want to read. However, it is not a book that captures the same way as The Eight did. For sure, The Fire is written with elegance and sophistication. But the characters don’t catch me the same way. As a literary thriller, this is not quite in the upper echelons of the genre, even though it is good I think I will only recommend this book to people who are already Katherine Neville fans. For others, I am not so sure, but I think it may be a disappointment.

The Quickie, by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

I usually don’t like James Patterson so much, and therefore rarely reads him. In fact, the only book I have read by James Patterson that I really liked was The Jester. But that is a book that is about as non-Patterson as you can imagine. However, a couple of weeks ago, two Patterson-books landed on my desk more or less by accident, so I decided to give him another try.

And to my surprise I found that I blasted through The Quickie in two long sessions. I loved it. The format is typical Patterson I’d say – short chapters, an easy read, all of that. But the plot is different and the heroes very dark and shady indeed. The murderer is the husband of a female police officer in NYPD who thought she knew her husband.

Lauren Stillwell is a cop, and right after indulging in a “quickie” with a colleague as a revenge on her seemingly cheating husband, she witnesses her husband fighting with her lover and driving away with him. His dead body is found shortly thereafter. From there on, Lauren finds herself covering up the crime. And with each step she takes, she gets herself deeper into crime and corruption.

There are no heroes, no sympathetic characters in The Quickie. But there is an exciting, fast-paced plot, to some extent character-driven, that involves lust, deceit and murder. The Quickie has a noir aspect to it, along with the fast-moving, exciting action, that appealed to me. So this time, I will actually recommend a Patterson book. But let me also say that as all Patterson-books, it does require readers to suspend some disbelief and refrain pondering too seriously some of the fairly unlikely coincidences in the plot. Even so, The Quickie – to me – looks like one of Patterson’s best books.

The Avenger, by Frederick Forsyth

Calvin Dexter, the main character of this story, is a quiet lawyer in a quiet little town in America. Or so it seems. However, Dexter was a “tunnel rat” in Vietnam, one of the toughest services there, and came back alive and highly decorated. A man very used to danger.

It turns out that Dexter doubles as the Avenger, a man who secretly sells services where he uses the set of skills acquired in Vietnam rather than at law school.

The main plot in The Avenger involves a Canadian billionaire that hires the Avenger to identify the killer of his grandson. The Avenger, however, eventually gets involved in this at a personal and emotional level, rather than simply professional. And when that happens, the straightforward mission gets infinitely more complicated.

The Avenger is a great and interesting read, with a very intriguing psychological mechanism at its core. It is not the best book Frederick Forsyth has ever written, but as all of Forsyth’s books, it is still very suspenseful and entertaining.

Rising Sun, by Michael Crichton

Rising Sun was filmed in 1993 (starring Sean Connery): Rising Sun. It was a wonderful movie, but still represents an instance of the class of cases where the book is better than the movie.

Rising Sun is the chronicle of three days of investigation into the murder of a young woman during a business party. Detective Peter Smith finds himself investigating a foreign culture as well as a crime.

He soon finds that there is much of Japanese culture that he doesn’t understand. Smith is guided through the intricacies of Japanese behavior by John Connor, a detective on leave who used to hold Smith’s job.

The murder of Cheryl Austin should be easy to solve, as it was videotaped by security cameras at the Nakamoto building. Nakamoto officials, however, obstruct the investigation from the beginning. The tapes of the murder and what they actually show prove to be a separate mystery. It is not only the tapes that lie: Most of the people questioned by the detectives have their own motives for concealing the truth. Very little is what it seems at first glance.

Rising Sun is a very fascinating detective novel, full of surprises and fast-paced action. A superb read!

You can read more Crichton-reviews at Leserglede!

Also, you can order the book and movie Rising Sun, Michael Crichton from amazon US. Also, amazon Uk has Crichton Rising Sun, book and movie!

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