Pandoras Succession by Russell Brooks
 Buy on Amazon | Pandora’s SuccessionBy: Russell Brooks Published by: Russell Brooks ISBN: 0986751316 Genre: action Author’s Website: Author’s Twitter: Facebook: HERE Recommendable for people who: |
Synopsis (from Amazon):
Where would you hide if you learned the CDC and a major pharmaceutical company unleashed a hyper deadly microbe on the human race? CIA operative, Ridley Fox, never stopped hunting his fiancée’s killers—a weapons consortium called The Arms of Ares. When an informant leads him to an old bunker outside of Groznyy, Chechnya, Fox is captured, beaten, and left for dead. When the informant rescues him, Fox learns that his capture was no coincidence: someone had set him up—possibly another government agent. Fox barely escapes after learning that Ares has acquired a hyper deadly microbe—called Pandora—that is believed to have wiped out ancient civilizations. The trail leads Fox to Tokyo where he discovers that people within the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Japanese Intelligence want Pandora for themselves. The only person Fox can trust is a woman from his past who he nearly got killed.
My Thoughts:
This book for me, was just OK. I think it would be a great read for anyone looking for an "action" story, but for me it fell a little flat on the character connection. From paragraph one, the story is already in full action mode and there is no opportunity to get to know the characters at all. It took a good hundred pages or so to feel anything for the main character, Fox. For me, that hurt the story a little.
Don’t get me wrong. The negatives in this book are far fewer than the positives.
For me the negs: I was not a fan of the writing style/sentence structure. It was very blunt and finite. I almost felt like words were cut out of sentences to make the book fit into x-amount of a word count. The story could have easily had another 30 or 40 pages, just by allowing a little extra descriptive narrative. A little more description, a little more back story, and I would have LOVED this book. But, for me, the character connection took entirely too long to get going which made the story drag.
For the positives: This author obviously put tons of research in not only military procedure but the science of chemical warfare. This adds a layer of believability to this story that many others miss the mark on. That gives us a very "If that really happens…" kind of story. Believability goes a long way in a story like this, and I think any fan of spy/chemical warfare type stories will eat this one right up. I could definitely see this book being bought by Hollywood and made into a big Michael Bay film. A little “tweaking” on the script and I can see CASH COW all over it.
FUN STUFF:
Want to see what this books all about? Mr Brooks has put a 5 CHAPTER free sample download on his site: HERE
Warning to parents: this is an adult novel. It contains: strong language and graphic “war type” violence.