THE CHASE - Book review

Clive Cussler’s novel The Chase is the first in his Isaac Bell historical series. Published in 2007, it is mainly set in 1906. The prologue ‘The Ghost from the Past’ features an elderly Bell in 1950 as he witnesses the recovery of a railroad engine from a lake in Montana. The epilogue ‘Up from the Depths’ returns to this scene too. Certainly, the prologue does tend to provide us with a spoiler for the final stages of the adventure, which runs under the title of ‘The Chase Quickens’; the intermediate section is labelled ‘The Butcher Bandit’.

In January 1906, a solitary bank robber gets away not only with his loot but also with the cold-blooded murder of the bank staff. This wasn’t his first robbery, however; it happened to be the fifteenth successful robbery he had committed, actually killing thirty-eight men and women and two children (p18), and thus gaining the infamous sobriquet the Butcher Bandit.

The head of the Van Dorn Detective Agency commits his agent Isaac Bell to track down and apprehend the notorious bandit. Bell already has a solid reputation as a thief-taker: ‘... tracked down Big Foot Cussler...’ (p52). Bell is an engaging and attractive character.

Cussler not only name-drops himself. One of Bell’s new contacts in San Francisco is a young boy called Stuart Lauthner (p332); this is the name of Cussler’s biographer (though he misnames him on the next page as Warren,,,!)

Inevitably, being an enthusiast, Cussler knowledgeably writes about fast cars and trains of the period. He comes across the chief train dispatcher called Morton Gould; I don’t know why he’d want to use the composer’s name (1913-1996).

During his investigations Bell makes friends with a secretary called Marion and it seems romance might be in the air... There is also a fantastic cross-nation drive against the clock, an unfortunate death, and dollops of suspense and action too.

Cussler’s familiarity with the period shines through this fast-paced cat-and-mouse adventure, with two formidable villains and the startling backdrop of the tragic San Francisco earthquake, which is well described.

When the final page is turned, it’s nice to know that there are other adventures of Isaac Bell to enjoy! Next in the series: The Wrecker (2009). Like a number of other authors, such as Bernard Cornwell and C S Forrester, Cussler wrote his Bell books out of chronological order – in effect, filling in gaps in the hero’s earlier history. Chronologically, two later Bell books come before The Chase: The Striker (2013) and The Assassin (2015), covering the periods 1902-1912 and 1899-1908 respectively).

Editorial comment

Chapter 2 is dated September 15, 1906 and relates how Bell is tasked with tracking down the bandit. Unfortunately, it should be 1905. Since the denouement takes place in April, 1906!

‘The posse claimed there were no tracks leading out of town to follow’ (p112) – which seems odd. There must be plenty of tracks leading out of town – unless the road surface is metalled, of course. In which case, it would not be worthy of comment.

A number of full-page black-and-white illustrations have been inserted; but the artist doesn’t appear to be credited.

TYPHOON FURY - Book review

TYPHOON FURY is one of Clive Cussler’s novels from The Oregon Files co-written by Boyd Morrison (2017).

It begins in the second battle of Corregidor, 1945. Japanese soldiers are making a last stand in a cave system. Incredibly, they seem invulnerable. Only massive explosive retaliation destroys them.

Beth Anders travelled around the world tracking down stolen artwork. In Thailand she encounters Salvadore Locsin who uses such paintings to finance his planned insurgency. It soon becomes evident that Locsin is special; if he is wounded, he wound rapidly heals; and he possesses remarkable strength. The drug that is responsible is rare: Typhoon Fury. And the withdrawal symptoms are deadly.

Juan Cabrillo and his crew are assisting Beth and soon get sucked into a suspenseful adventures in Manila, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Guam. The tension never lets up.

These adventures are a team effort for all the characters, and they certainly have plenty to do, and plenty of scrapes to get out of!

PIRANHA - Book review

 

PIRANHA is one of Clive Cussler’s novels from the Oregon Files, co-written with Boyd Morrison (2014).

I hadn’t read any Oregon Files books before, but reading this I was hooked by the fast pace and non-stop action. The impressive array of equipment and vehicles onboard the Oregon increase the enjoyment.

Juan Cabrillo and his crew are under attack by an unknown but very well informed adversary. In several different locales the crew members barely escape with their lives. How the would-be assassin anticipates their every move is definitely science fiction, but it still keeps the pages turning and the suspense never lets up until the dramatic end.

Piranha is a US government code-name for certain equipment.

Virtually every Cussler book has an exciting colourful cover.

 

JET STREAM

I was drawn to the book Jet by Russell Blake because the cover shares the same model as my book Mission: Prague (see the two covers to compare below).

  

The similarities don’t end there, either. Maya, codename Jet is a twenty-eight-year-old Mossad assassin. The heroine in Mission: Prague is psychic spy Tana, a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto; she was thirty-eight at the time of her Prague mission.

Jet’s adventures are set in the present, while Tana’s are in the past (Czechoslovakia, 1975; Iran, 1978; Afghanistan, 1979).

Tana’s Prague novel first came out in 2008 as The Prague Manuscript. Jet was published in 2012, though the ‘shared’ model did not appear on the new Prague cover until 2017.

Both books are fast-paced.

Jet – the first book in the series

Maya thought she’d left behind her life of violence and had retired to Trinidad. Unfortunately, somebody from her past had talked and sent an assassination squad to eliminate her. From the explosive beginning to the traumatising end, it’s action all the way. I certainly want to read more in the series!

Russell Blake has produced a page-turning thrill-ride that has built up an enviable fan base. And to his fans’ delight he’s prolific. He’s just produced his SEVENTEENTH Jet novel (including two prequels) plus a host of other series; in all, in seven years he’s written about 60 books (and co-authored two with Clive Cussler).

If you like your adventures fast and furious, try the Jet series.  

***

Secret file – 00/13/417 – Tana Standish, psychic spy

Mission: Prague was released by a MOD accredited publisher, Manatee Books. It is based on a manuscript that came into the possession of the author Nik Morton (believed to be a pseudonym). Investigations are in hand to ascertain the source. It is believed that the work is a collaborative effort by a select group of agents, all intent on telling the story of Tana Standish, psychic spy.

Standish was recruited into International Enterprises (Interprises) in 1965 and her career continued until 1988.

Her story is ostensibly being told as fiction. Mission: Prague involves Standish in a mission in Czechoslovakia in 1975.

Other earlier Standish missions have still to be declassified. They take place in the following theatres: Singapore (1965), Naples (1966), Izmir (1967), Odessa (1968), Pilsen (1968), Karachi (1970), Elba (1971), Gibraltar (1972), Mombasa (1973), and Hong Kong (1974).

Standish – brief biography

Tana was born on May 12, 1937 in Warsaw. At the time of the uprising of the ghetto in 1942, she was five years old. She had two brothers, Mordechai and Ishmael, both now deceased. She was adopted by a British couple in 1942, but her adoptive father Lieutenant Hugh Standish was killed ironically in a car crash two years later. Her mother Vera never remarried.

Tana joined Edinburgh University in 1955 and read Psychology, gaining a BA (Hons) in 1958. Thereafter, she worked for the Parapsychological Research Unit, Northamptonshire – 1958 to early 1965; during this time, she travelled to the US and the USSR, among other countries, to give talks on memory, for, besides possessing psychic abilities, she has a photographic memory.

Two of her later missions have been documented in Mission: Tehran (1978) and Mission: Khyber (1979)

Uncanny coincidence

We’re all shocked and saddened by the airplane crash – Germanwings Airbus A320, Flight 9525.

Last night, my wife Jennifer was reading Clive Cussler’s Corsair (2009), a novel ‘from the Oregon Files’ co-written with Jack Du Brul, and noticed in the story details about a 737 plane crash (pp130/131) that has pre-echoes of the latest tragedy.

‘… we had to consider engine failure – radio dying scenario but discounted it… (we think ) the plane’s tail came off… a structural failure in the tail could very likely damage the radio antennas, which would explain the blackout… it could also knock out the plane’s transponder at the same time…’

‘The screen showed a mountainous area, nearly inaccessible to anything other than a chopper or a serious four-wheel drive… the wreckage stretched for a half mile or more up the slope…’

The same year of this book’s publication there was a plane crash – Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330 – on 1 June. It entered an aerodynamic stall and fell into the Atlantic, killing 228 passengers and crew. The black boxes were not recovered from the ocean floor until 2011.

 

 

 

Later: 27 March: Since writing the above, it has been revealed that one of the pilots deliberately murdered everyone onboard. At the risk of inserting a spoiler, the above book has further echoes, apparently!