Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The Tenth Circle

The Tenth Circle by Jon Land
Open Road Integrated Media, 12/17/13
Paperback/ebook, 536 pages
ISBN-13: 9781480414792
www.jonlandbooks.com


Description:
McCracken races to stop a terrorist attack on the State of the Union speech and confronts an ancient weapon of unimaginable power
Blaine McCracken has just pulled off the impossible in Iran, ridding the world of a terrible threat—only to return home to face another. The reverend Jeremiah Rule spews hateful rhetoric and inflames half the world, setting off a series of devastating terrorist attacks. Rule, though, isn’t acting alone. A shadowy cabal is pulling his strings, unaware that they are creating a monster who’s about to spin free of their control.
Finding himself a wanted man, McCracken must draw on skills and allies both old and new to get to the heart of a plan aimed at unleashing no less than the tenth circle of hell. A desperate chase across country and continent takes him into the past, where the answers he needs hide in some of history’s greatest unsolved mysteries. As the clock ticks down to an unthinkable maelstrom, McCracken and his trusty sidekick Johnny Wareagle fight to save the United States from a war that the country didn’t even know it was fighting—but that it may well lose.

My Thoughts:


The Tenth Circle by Jon Land  is another installment to the Blaine McCraken series, #11, I believe. In this outing McCracken almost singlehandedly (he has some help from Johnny Wareagle and Sal Belamo) almost does the impossible - several times. He begins by ending a nuclear threat in Iran to tackling an even bigger terrorist threat based right at home in the USA. Tied into the threat is the answer to the disappearance of the Roanoke colony and the mysterious word "Croatoan"that was found caved on a tree, as well as the disappearance of the Mary Celeste.

Land has this novel gallop along at a good clip, which includes many short chapters, and has a whole lot going on.

I found myself of two minds while reading The Tenth Circle by Jon Land. On the one hand I pretty much knew what I was going to get when I started reading it. It's an action/adventure thriller with an emphasis on action. On the other hand I actually found myself bored reading it because it didn't stand out amount others in the genre. I understand having a hero who can get things done but McCracken, along with others (Wareagle, Belamo, and Zarrin - a Palestinian assassin) is just too good, too perfect. All of the characters in this book are caricatures.

What this is is a good airplane/traveling book: Something with action; short, quick chapters; better than making small talk with strangers; you won't cry or feel a need to replace it should it get lost in the shuffle (of course now it would possibly be on an e-reader, which I wouldn't want to lose, but I digress.) It does deliver excitement and entertainment, so it is a perfectly adequate book based on my airplane book criteria, but it's not going to stand out heads above the others in this genre.

Recommended - but find it used or at a discount price

Excerpt


Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Open Road Integrated Media via Netgalley for review purposes.


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