There are not many war thrillers around and of those few around there are still fewer that can appeal to the lay reader. Future conventional wars will mainly be fought on the high seas as this book shows. The book portrays a lady captain, of a technology and weapon packed state-of-the art US Navy Destroyer(a type of warship) who is pushed into action by peace time diplomatic bungling by belligerant claims of Argentina over Antartica (remember the Falklands war of the 80’s).
This book is a pleasant change for thrillers readers as it is soft prose, easy to read on a holiday/vacation as it is not voluminous/bulky and not overly full of military terminology (incidentally this is one area/theme not listed and totally ignored in Mouthshut and this review will be a pioneering effort to readers in the joy of military fiction, last major was Tom Clancy’s Hunt for Red October). The most interesting aspect of this book is how ladies fare in a traditional male bastion and how they react in a war environment. There are action scenes, environmental issues concerning the last virgin territory on earth i.e Antartica.
There is no rhetoric in case a -la-Bollywood war epic come to your mind. There is a glossary of the few abbreviations for weapon hardware at the end, don’t miss and try it on your friends. I found it un-put-downable and finished it flat in 52 hours not inluding the 30 min I took to place all the ports in Brazil, Argentina and Antarctica on google earth to be in sync with the story. As this was the first book by this author I intend reading more of his books and will look forward to sharing its review. Her’s wishing you Bon-apetit and voracious reading.