Hello everyone!
I'm veering into a completely different direction with this week's book post, but then again I have been known to do that from time to time. I'll start reading a fantasy book, then get distracted and hitch a ride on the Orient Express with Agatha Christie, and then once I can't giggle at Hercule Poirot anymore I'm going to probably read a silly romance before I return to the fantasy book.
Or, failing that, I'm going to be suggested a book by Kobo, helpfully, and then I'll devour it in a day or two.
This was what happened when Bookbub, not Kobo actually, suggested I might want to take a look at Jack Mars' books, but it suggested book four in a series, and me being who I am, I want to start things from the very beginning, obviously.
So I went and checked it out, and hello! Kobo was offering the first in the Luke Stone thriller books for free.
Obviously, that was a no brainer and I grabbed it, downloaded it to my e-reader, and managed to get through it in two days tops, I do believe.
Because, the female thing aside, I do like a good thriller book.
Of course I can't read ALL of them in the genre, some just give me nightmares and others don't do anything for me at all.
I was suspicious about Jack Mars and his work, but the cover art looked a lot like something I had aready read, by Stephen Coonts, and enjoyed immensely, and also the description rang a bell for Vince Flynn and his Mitch Rapp series, so I thought to myself, well, why not.
And since Agent Stone gets woken up in the middle of the night to start us off, gets onto a chopper and goes to hunt down stolen chemical waste, well.
I was sold.
See, they're going to be hunting down dirty bombs that'll do a whole lot of damage to unsuspecting and innocent civilians. But what Luke doesn't YET know is that the target isn't actually large groups of people.
Well, it is, but it's a fairly specific group of people.
Namely, they hitch the bomb to a military drone from China, and send it to the White House.
Luke & Co, a Special Response Team (SRT) under the FBI umbrella, only JUST figure it out in time, after being told that there's someone in the ranks suspected of funneling information to other agencies, and being stonewalled all around since every other agency thinks they need to go throguh proper channels and not arrest an Iranian diplomat who seems to have hands all over this.
Luke obviously disagrees, and manages to get enough information that he and partner Ed can get to the White House, evacuate it, and watch it go boom.
I swear, the poor building has so many bad things happen to it in these books and movies, can't people just leave it alone for once?
Anyway, now in the Mount Weather facility (it's with a jolt that I realised The 100 was actually on to somethng there), Luke is pretty much told his job is done, but he has a hunch and so, following said hunch, he and his partner head off to check the van they had finally found, the one which had stolen the radioactive material in the first place.
The two Muslims there are dead, one by sniper shot, which makes Luke suspicious.
Hence, why he orders an armoured attack on the convoy trying to get his "friend", the Iranian diplomat, out of the country.
The information is staggering: it wasn't actually Iran behind the coup, but the US Government.
Contacting an old spook friend of his, Luke learns that Operation Red Box, as it is called, is basically a trigger that gets pulled within the government if they want to quickly restart the system, and it unfortunately includes killing off the current president.
Luke tries warning Mount Weather, to no avail, as bombs go off, and now Speaker of the House, third in line after POTUS and the Vice President, is being sworn in, and declaring war on Iran.
Which is as bad as it could come, and now the loose ends need tying up, so they're gunning for the SRT operatives, but Ed, in the hospital after getting himself shot at, kills his would-be assailants, and warns Luke which gives him enough of a head start to haul ass.
Unfortunately, his wife and son are taken hostage to try and leverage against him, but the information leaks that the Vice President, former Victoria's Secret model (yeah I know, how does that happen?) is alive, and that her Secret Service agent is driving her someplace he thinks is safe. A check inside his head (a chapter from his point of view, that is) tells us that his original, older agency partner pretty much told him how it goes: White on White conspiracy.
Meaning, the enemies aren't OUTSIDE, they're INSIDE.
Finally figuring out it was an inside job, Luke rushes to get the Vice President, now President, and get her out alive, which he manages only by driving a tank-like SUV and handing her off to Ed.
For his part, with a President-lookalike body, he ends up shot off the road, and captured, but luckily for him, the old Secret Service agent had banged the drum and the agency, sworn to protect the President, joins ranks, getting Luke, and taking the actual President to where she can relieve the madman Speaker of the House of presidency.
Things don't end here, however; Luke learns that his old boss, and long-time friend, had been in on this from the start, but also that they have a potential location for his wife and son.
And that the President needs him and Ed on another mission, as of yesterday.
The books was fast-paced, it had action, it had family, it had friends, but I think what drew me in was the main character, Luke, who is quite likeable if you aren't turned off by the cowboy persona. Still, I believe there should be some sort of preceeding book that would explain how Luke got to the position he's in now, his wife and son, and a lot of other details we are made to take for granted in this, the first of what seems to be many novels of the series.
After all, he's thirty-nine when this whole thing starts! You'd think the author would have picked a younger hero.
That being said, however, despite the fast pace, and my thought that it could perhaps have been two books, and a bit more detailed, it was entertaining, exhilirating, and definitely worth a read. I can't wait to follow it up with book two, Oath of Office!
xx
*image not mine
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