CoffeeBear.net

Deception Point
My rating: 2 out of 5.

This started off as a fun book and for a long time into it I was able to suspend my disbelief to enjoy it. It read something like a weak Tom Clancy novel. At least up until a certain point in during the climatic finale of the story. At that particular point in the story, my disbelief slipped into overdrive and suddenly I felt I like was reading a bad movie script. *sigh* And it was so looking better than

To avoid spoiling the book for those still interested, the scene in particular will only be described after cut. Even there, I will try to avoid spoilers as much as possible but if you wish to read the book completely spoiler free; go read it before you read the rest of this article.

The heros are on a sea research ship anchored ~30 miles off the Eastern seaboard. The ship is there to gather data about some ugly sharks that have been attracted to the area some a geothermal event. Magma has risen up through the Earth’s crust and gotten close to the ocean floor; however the ocean is working as a massive heat sink cooling the magma and preventing it from erupting. All but one member of the crew is on shore leave celebrating.

The main villian, employing a 3 man special forces team, has tracked the heros to the ship. The villian & his team arrive at the ship in a black-ops helicopter, jamming all radar & communications. They fire a one of a half-ton of laser guided missles at a Coast Guard helicopter sitting on the research ship, destroying it killing the pilot instantly. The helicopter then goes to attack the remaining heros and does considerable damage to the ship. One of the heros makes it into a speed boat that is attached to the ship but he’s wounded and the others are cut off from him. Some of the damage to the research ship caused the speed boat to break free. The one hero character immediately starts up the boat, full throttle to try getting out of jamming range and to call for help. The helicopter drops 2 of the special ops troops on the ship and goes after the speed boat.

The remaining heros on the ship end up taking out one of the special ops troops and use him as a distraction to take out the other one. The helicopter fires a missle destroying the speed boat and returns to see their men have been incapacitated. They land, the main villian reveals himself¹ and distracts the heros for a bit. There’s a fair amount of talk, the remaining special ops troop figures out what the heros were doing there and that the hero’s gun is out of bullets. We get some fighting that ends up with one of the heros releasing and re-engaging the anchor/cable/winch. This causes people and equipment to go sliding all over the deck of the ship.

The real moment that caused me to lose my ability to suspend disbelief was when the helicopter went over the side and Mr. Brown described it sinking into the depths of the ocean with all those missles. Right down through the black ocean to the magma bubble. He totally lost me at that point. *sigh* And up until then it was pretty good. Oh well.

¹ Don’t ask who it is; I won’t tell you. You have to read the book.