Hostile Contact

Alan Craik #4

by Gordon Kent

From the acclaimed author of Night Trap, Peacemaker and Top Hook, an exhilarating new tale of modern espionage and flying adventure featuring US Navy intelligence officer Alan Craik – sure to appeal to the many fans of Tom Clancy and Dale Brown.

For years, a high-level CIA mole has been passing secrets to china. Now he’s gone, but he’s left a deadly legacy…

In the seas off Seattle, an unidentified submarine is shadowing American ballistic-missile subs. US Navy intelligence officer Alan Craik will have to draw on all his experience of aerial anti-submarine warfare to track it down. Yet unexpected complications from his last mission threaten to put him out of action before he can even get started.

It is only weeks since Craik’s pursuit of CIA mole George Shreed ended in a spectacular shootout. Now it seems there are some dangerous people in Washington and Beijing whose world has been shattered by Shreed’s fall from grace. They all have their own reasons for revenge – and they will risk everything to achieve it.

Genres: Action, Fiction

538 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Pseudonym of writers Kenneth M. Cameron with his son Christian Cameron.

Series:
* Alan Craik

Reviews

[Henri Moreaux · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Hostile Contact the story picks up directly where Top Hook left off, in this chapter we see the resolution of the Ray Suter story line and the continued fall out from the actions of George Shreed.

Alan Craig & Mike Dukas attempt to decipher a investigation file that has been foisted on them by the CIA, which appears to have been seeded with bait material that draws them into a meeting which is... a 'Hostile Contact' hey hey. The title also comes into play later in the novel when the carrier battlegroup Alan's detactment is a part of has hostile contact with Chinese & Chinese backed actors.

The novel itself is quite good, it does not suffer from the flaws evident is Peacemaker and with Top Hook having done the lead in work it pretty much launches into the story line with little delay, although there is a little lead in with the introduction of Jerry Piat, and some other tertiary characters that are relevant to this books plot.

Pretty good, climactic ending, bit of feel-good subplot wrap up for some of the Navy men and the reader also gets some satisfaction with the outcome of some of the seedier character's subplots.

[Neville · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book to be very slow and it seemed to confuse the reader a bit with the storyline all over the place. I'm not sure why they looked at the Chinese sub and the thoughts of the captain and then they seem to forget that he was part of the original story. They did mention him and the sub, but that is all.
It took me a while to read this book as I didn't seem to get into the story, as I do with other books.

[Dajuroka Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a good read if into USA naval and spy contact. Bit hard to keep track of all the plotting and the end could have been more suspenseful .... what if the genetics came back negative in the last sentence!

[Chuck · Rating 1 out of 5]

This might have been a good story if I had finished it. The writing style
was just too awkward and tedious for me.