By Sean Salazar
Published By Andante Publishing
*received from author for review
Summary:
Within hours of an accidental bombing in Iraq, retired CIA sniper Al Robek is summoned to investigate. While battling his own demons from post-traumatic syndrome, Al uncovers one mystery after another. He learns that his former girlfriend, Jess Contreras, was the pilot responsible for the bombing. Together, they find an ancient city buried by the Biblical flood and become the targets of a secret brotherhood bent on triggering an early Armageddon. Enter Ed Collins, an unassuming British code-cracker, who has been tracking the brotherhood since the end of World War II. With the help of the CIA and the British SAS and MI-5, the trio embarks on a dangerous mission that takes them to the Middle East, Europe, and South America--slowly uncovering evidence of a conspiracy hatched thousands of years ago. Ultra-secret espionage involving the highest level of government, the Vatican, and international banking brings about new discoveries, but with each comes new questions, new missing pieces to the puzzle. Can they figure out what is going on before it's too late? Is there anyone they can really trust? Do they know who they're fighting against? Or even what they're fighting for? The survival of mankind ultimately lies in this unlikely team's hands
My Thoughts: This was my foray into this genre for the year. While there were some misses throughout the book, I enjoyed the read and can see myself taking the time to read the second.
The action starts on page one and does not let up until there are no more pages. While the characters seem stereotypical of what you would expect, I don't think they would work if you tried to take them to a different direction. I loved the quirky British bunker agents, they made up some of the best scenes in the book. Al works as the main character and his background is well explained throughout so some of the things he does seem more probable. I'm not sure how I feel about Jess, she was a good side character but the twist didn't really make sense and was not really explained.
I had two main problems that I could not get past. The first, trying to add romance to the story. The author did a good job of establishing the past history between Al and Jess but needed to leave it at that. Al displaying jealousy just seemed to pop up in weird place and broke up the flow of the story. The other problem was, if this is a series it needs to have smaller issues that will be resolved inside the book while still working on the overall big picture that runs throughout the series. The big picture of the Brotherhood vs. the Mason vs. Al and friends was established very well but when I finished reading I didn't fell as if anything was accomplished that made the reading overly satisfying. As stated, the big picture was interesting enough that I will take the time to read the second but I hope something is resolved, even if it's a small something, to make it feel more like a series book.
Rating: 3
An extremely fast novel which, for me, was a one-day read. It will remind readers of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt, who went from one problem to the next in minutes. Working with fiction and non-fiction the author has written a fabulous adventure and I'm waiting impatiently for the next book in the series.
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