Review: You Just Can't Put Down "The Orange Moon Affair"
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 25, 2013
If you are in the mood to spend the next several nights up reading an excellent work by AFN Clarke, then The Orange Moon Affair, the second in the Thomas Gunn series, is the ticket. The writing is crisp and fast; characters are well developed and the plot has more twists and turns than an Italian mountain road.Clarke's basic plot involves the Gunn Group and Thomas, a former SAS soldier, who has mustered out; found the love of his life, and is recuperating on his yacht. It's an idyllic world where he and Julie, who was to draw even closer to him, spend lazy days swimming and enjoying life together in the Mediterranean. It's a world that is also disrupted by "the call" announcing the murder of his father, head of the Gunn Group, and his stepmother's call to return home to take over the reins of the company.Dutifully, Thomas and Julie fly away from his yacht Gozo into what they assumed would be a standard corporate life. But, here the plot twists from Clarke's keyboard start to hit heavy and fast. There's a run-in with an old friend who was hired to send Thomas to the next world, but couldn't because, in truth, they were buddies in the SAS. On a deeper level, we find out later that Danny is actually part of MI5.But this is only part of the cast of the novel. Julie's dad just happens to be computer whiz that Thomas needs. Meantime, an old family "friend" -- Hamish -- turns out to be (read the book to find out). We meet members of Thomas' old unit; international arms dealers and more.Clarke, author of the best-selling "Contact,"  knows how to develop a full character in just a few short pages and by that time you turn the page the character is an old friend who just seems to belong in the  story. AFN Clarke is probably the number one writer of action/thriller novels and I can hardly wait for the next installment.