Clive Cussler's Fire Strike

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The suffocating heat came on as suddenly as the pounding rain had stopped and raised a shroud of fog from the waterlogged ground.

Admiral Bromley glanced up from the file folder on his burnished teakwood desk and crushed out his cigarette in a silver art nouveau ashtray. Any sign of the Rawlinsons?" the lieutenant asked, his whisper masked by the din of chirring insects and croaking frogs.You served with one of the finest commando units in the service, and participated in several top secret missions. Missions that were, shall we say, off the books?" You might recognise him as the author of epic action novels, but beyond his writing, there are many other reasons why fans of Clive Cussler remember him as an awesome man. A lot of moving parts in this book that... sort of come together. While it's still a fun romp, some details seem thrown in and others not explored fully enough. There were three stories, combined into two, that each could have been a standalone Oregon Story.

When Cabrillo is hired to extract an undercover operative in Kenya, he finds himself on the trail of a deadly international plot. A Saudi prince seeks to unleash a deadly assault on U.S. forces, sparking a new war in the Middle East and ultimately destroying Israel.

The "wet cousins" of the better-known Special Air Service, the SBS was a commando unit of the Royal Marines specializing in coastal insertions-hence the mission tonight running a Zodiac deep upriver. What drew me to The Oregon Files and made it my Clive Cussler favorite series are the ship and her crew. They feel like family. The Oregon is not only a vessel but is a main character, an extension of every great character on board. With a new author, what captivates me was brought down to a great extent and the story has become more technical closer to perhaps Tom Clancy's variety which the author also writes. I think I had looked up a C-130 landing and taking off of an aircraft carrier before, because that was mentioned in this book, too, and I was, "Bunk! That could never happen!" And then I looked it up and discovered it did happen! That would have been pretty crazy, to be on an aircraft carrier and watching a C-130 coming in to not only land but take off multiple times with its payload being increased for the next time it landed. That was pretty cool to revisit!

Unfortunately, this series is starting to run into the same issues as other thriller series. The authors believe the stakes have to be extremely high (i.e. even though this is such a sophisticated ship, there is something in each new novel that will sink it), Juan goes solo on missions (which makes no sense, considering the level of talent of the crew and the myriad of injuries he sustains and miraculously can continue to function through the rest of the novel), and, oh yes, he also gets captured somehow in the middle. This is one of those novels where you are thrown into a character's situation for a chapter, and then you are thrown into another character's situation in the next chapter. There are many characters - too many. As you would expect, eventually these come together to form a semi coherent plot, but it was well past the half way point of the book where that happened. Nonsense. The board of inquiry found you completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever. No one holds you accountable in the least-except yourself." I refuse to sign this," Bromley said, stabbing a letter in the file. "You're one of our finest soldiers and a tremendous asset in Her Majesty's service. We can't afford to lose you."

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I noticed here a number of letters of support from your commanding officers and enlisted comrades." He held one up for closer inspection. "This one says you are 'well liked, and highly commended for his manners, deportment, and diction.'" The two men sped away as the lieutenant pushed open the basement door. He pulled the light chain and called out again. "Rawlinson! Don't shoot. We're here to get you out. Are you there?" He jogged down the wooden staircase and scanned the dank room. All he found were undisturbed storage shelves laden with canned goods and household sundries. The vintage Soviet-era snowcat crested the final rise on the steep climb. Its big diesel engine belched a plume of oily smoke as it roared with the effort. It had taken three hours clanking through a narrow pass high in the towering Pamir Mountains through the swirling snow to reach the ancient Tibetan fortress. It loomed above the forested valley floor, perched on the edge of an insurmountable cliff. Its sturdy walls could resist the siege weapons of its day, but the fort's remoteness and sheer inaccessibility had always been its primary defense. All but the most determined visitors were deterred from even venturing here. How the mighty stone edifice had ever been built by ancient hands in this location several hundred years ago remained a mystery.