Review: A Great Deal
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 26, 2014
This review is a reproduction of my review for Arctic Wargames (Ethan Jones) the only book I have read.The premise of this book takes a little getting used to, namely some Danish military makes an unauthorized attempt to take the northwest passage from Canada by launching a small invasion force. Once that is accepted this is a genuinely exciting action story. Justin, an agent of the Canadian Intelligence Service, is assigned the task of finding out what two icebreakers were doing in northern Canadian waters, and why. The time is April, so it is still cold up there. Justin takes a small team, which includes Carrie, whom he has previously almost married. The initial commander of the team is Alisha, with whom Justin definitely does not get on well. The remaining characters do not provide any great surprises for this genre, although in part this may be because they are needed to drive the plot.The team goes north, and we get some good descriptions of life around Baffin and Ellesmere Island, specifically Grise Fiord, Arctic Bay, and some other places I had never heard of before. Rightly or wrongly, I got a feeling for the way the few people there live, so the descriptions of the background are effective, although I cannot comment on their accuracy. There are also background facts, and some may be misleading. One that struck me was a statement that implied that with minus two degrees (Fahrenheit) and ten degrees of wind chill, even with good protective clothing, you could die of hypothermia within an hour. I once spent a year in Canada, and I know that is not true. (Without good protective clothing that may well be true.) Even worse, one part has the hero diving into Arctic water to rescue someone from a submerged car, after having undertaken a long truck chase. Apart from shooting a pistol underwater (not a good idea), survival when he emerged would be difficult, given the long drive back.However, let's put such things behind us. I have seen a lot worse in best sellers! Since this book is largely plot-driven, I shall not go further, other than to say that there is a sequence of exciting action sequences, all set in fairly appalling climatic conditions, and the sequence follows logically from what has preceded each part. Bearing in mind the primary premise, the characters are reasonably well-drawn, the dialogue is usually adequate and the story drags the reader in for an exciting ride. Towards the end there is a prolonged battle description. Fictional battles are difficult to write because in genuine battles, thanks to Clausewitz's "fog of war" (which Clausewitz did not actually coin but is a summary of his thoughts), often commanders have only a vague idea what is going on and other participants only have an idea of their immediate problems. This description is realistic, the battle could go either way, both sides suffer heavy casualties, and victory goes to the side that best recognizes the advantages of terrain, and works out a way to utilize it. (You might question why that piece of terrain was where it was, though.) To summarize, the book should take the reader along for an exciting ride, and I found it quite enjoyable.Ian Miller, author of Troubles