Exit Plan

Jerry Mitchell #3

by Larry Bond

Jerry Mitchell is on exercises off the coast of Pakistan when his submarine, the USS Michigan, is ordered to a rendezvous off the Iranian coast.

Once there, disembarked SEALs---experts in seaborne commando operations---are to extract two Iranian nationals who have sensitive information on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. While en route to shore, Michigan’s mini-sub suffers a battery fire, killing one crew member and forcing the survivors---four SEALs and LCDR Mitchell---to scuttle their disabled craft and swim for shore. There they find the two Iranians waiting for them, but their attempts at returning to Michigan are thwarted by heavy Iranian patrol boat activity.

When agents of Iran’s secret police, VEVAK, appear, escape seems all but impossible. When Mitchell and his men find themselves surrounded by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp troops, they create a bold plan to escape by sea. It’s a desperate gamble, but it’s the only way to get proof of the Iranian plot to the U.S. . . . and prevent a devastating new war.

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Military Fiction, War, Audiobook, Action, Suspense

412 pages, Hardcover

First published May 8, 2012

About the author

Larry Bond is the author of several bestselling military thrillers, including Crash Dive, Cold Choices, Dangerous Ground, Red Phoenix and the Larry Bond’s First Team and Larry Bond’s Red Dragon Rising series. He was a naval officer for six years, serving four on a destroyer and two on shore duty in the Washington DC area. He's also worked as a warfare analyst and antisubmarine technology expert, and he now writes and designs computer games, including Harpoon and Command at Sea. He makes his home in Springfield, Virginia.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/larrybond

Reviews

[Terence M - [Quot libros, quam breve tempus!] · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5-Stars ^ 3.0-Stars - "I liked It - but it was way too long"
Rating & Review to Come... Finished Jan 15, 2024
My Listening Activity can serve as my review, since I have little more to say, other than that the story was far too long, and the changes to the plots/events became increasingly tedious:
Terence M - is 80% done — Jan 12, 2024 02:45PM
I know 17:33 hours makes this is a long audiobook, and it has been better than OK so far, but I am looking forward to the end now.
Terence M - is 63% done — Jan 10, 2024 01:28PM
Recent eye surgery has given me the luxury of some extended audiobook listening. I started this new 'escapist' book on 9-Jan-24, and given that it was a 17:33 hours listen, I've knocked off two thirds in several sessions and I am enjoying the 'escapism' provided by Larry Bond!
Terence M - is starting — Jan 07, 2024 10:47PM
My current 'escapist' read, The Vatican Secret, is unlikely to make the grade, so this is my immediate 'escapist' back-up :))

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apr 11, 215pm ~~ Review asap.

530pm ~~ This third Jerry Mitchell novel by Larry Bond was the most disappointing for me so far. I love submarine stories, but in this one most of the action was on dry land, with a SEAL team involved in trying to get two people safely out of Iran. Our man Mitchell was there because the intended pilot of the transport mini sub had broken his arm in a stupid stunt and Mitchell was the only other qualified person available.

I wanted to like the book, but for me it was hopelessly boring, with pages and pages of setting up and background scientific or political information and so many acronyms scattered around that there was a glossary at the back of the book.

I also noticed more than a few typos and an odd phrase used by two characters which threw me for a loop. Tomorrow tonight. I know what they meant, but why did they say it that way? The other nit I have to pick is that at about the halfway point of the book Jerry is talking to the 'precious cargo' and says he is married but has no children.

Wait, Jerry is married? Since when? I found out just a few pages further on during a long and rather awkward flashback scene which totally killed off the last of my interest in the story. I skimmed through the remaining pages to find out if the actual submarine ever came back into the story, and paid closer attention when that did happen (very close to the end of the book) but my heart just wasn't in it anymore.

I have three books left to read in the Jerry Mitchell series. All I know about the next one is that Jerry will be the skipper and China will be the enemy. And the submarine itself? Will it be center stage again the way it should be in a submarine story? One can only hope.

[Steven Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you haven’t lived under a rock for the past three decades and have at the very least dabbled in action thriller novels, then you’ll know the name Larry Bond. He has been a mainstay in the genre, with his most easily recognizable work being his collaboration with Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising. Bond has been praised for his gripping plots, his attention to military detail, and tight prose, and all of that is apparent in Exit Plan, an entry in his Jerry Mitchell series.

In Exit Plan, Bond approaches a nightmare for any follower of national security and foreign policy: a nuclear Iran. A CIA asset, code-named Opal, believes they are under surveillance by VEVAK, the Iranian secret police, and that they are on the verge of being made. They send a distress signal through their handler requesting immediate extraction in exchange for detailed information on the Iranian nuclear program. The USS Michigan is redirected from training exercises in Pakistan and tasked with the extraction. Operators from SEAL Team Three are tapped to conduct the actual extraction, with one exception: Commander Jerry Mitchell, former fighter pilot and executive officer of the Michigan. He volunteers to fill in for an Advanced SEAL Delivery System assistant driver who has suffered an injury, and is qualified to do so due to experience he has training on the system.

The op quickly goes sideways as the ASDS suffers mechanical failure and kills the ASDS driver, leaving Mitchell and the SEALs stranded ashore in Iran. After linking up with Opal–which turns out to be an Iranian military officer and his pregnant wife, a scientist in the nuclear program–Mitchell and the SEALs learn they cannot immediately return to water due to Iranian patrols swarming the waters between them and the Michigan. It’s a race to stay one step ahead of the enemy in a non-permissive environment as the stranded sailors and their Iranian charges attempt to bring that information out of Iran in an effort to maintain stability in the region.

Exit Plan was hard to put down. It may start off a little slow for some readers, but I’m personally used to that. It slowly builds its momentum and once it achieves its maximum velocity, it barrels through until the end. The storyline was well researched, and shows that Bond has an immense knowledge of all things political and military. Furthermore, he knows how to display that knowledge without making it read like a military field manual. One point of commendation was a scene with an Iranian sub hunting the USS Michigan. With other authors, such as Tom Clancy, I tend to skip over the conventional warfare scenes because they drag on for me. Bond, on the other hand, built up the sub-on-sub fight with the perfect amount of tension, leaving me wondering when the showdown would occur, and when it did, I hung onto every word. That is the sign of a masterful author in the genre: making the book technically accurate while entertaining at the same time.

This was not the first entry in the Jerry Mitchell series, and so some of the connections were a little hard to catch onto at first. In the end, though, Bond does a good job filling in enough backstory so the character remain engaging. One particular scene I thought that was done well was when Mitchell was sleeping restlessly in Iran and having flashbacks to when he got reacquainted with an ex-girlfriend, later to be his wife, and explained the connection between himself, Joanna Patterson, a national security type in Washington, and Lowell Hardy, a politician and Mitchell’s former commanding officer. It provided humanization to Mitchell, made him relatable, and did not slow down the plot.

Another thing I appreciated was the divide between the storyline in Iran revolving around Mitchell, the SEALs, and the Iranians, and the political storyline that takes place in Washington, D.C. and Tel Aviv. Politics is such an integral part of what gets the military machine rolling, so to see some of what goes on behind the scenes definitely enhanced the plot. It’s another area of Exit Plan where Bond shows he knows his stuff, ranging from policy meetings to tense foreign negotiations to even the simplest things, such as a non-disclosure agreement.

Having sang the praises, I do feel there were a couple of points of contention. I felt the final scene in Iran before the epilogue was a little rushed. It’s not rushed as badly as I’ve seen in other authors’ work, but I do feel it could have been stretched a little bit longer without feeling stale. I also felt that the SEALs could have been given a little more attention and had backstories worked out for them, as well as some of the Iranian antagonists. They weren’t out-and-out flat characters, but I do feel a little more limelight for their histories could have been shed to great effect. Also, Bond states that an ORP is an operational readiness position. I don’t know if that’s what they call it in the Navy (Bond served as a Naval officer before venturing into defense contracting and writing), but I was always taught an ORP was an objective rally point, established before a movement to an objective and the waypoint the shooters fall back to upon completion of actions on the objective.

The biggest flaw of Exit Plan might have been necessary for the plot, but as a student of covert and clandestine operations, I immediately recognized it as being off. The SEALs wear Type III Naval Working Uniform, the Navy’s take on the desert digital camouflage pattern, and carry FN SCARs and SIG-Sauer pistols. Before I delve into why this is a problem, allow me to explain the difference between a clandestine operation and a covert operation:

-A clandestine operation places the emphasis of concealment on the operation itself, not the sponsor of the operation. According to federal regulations, the United States Armed Forces are only allowed to helm clandestine operations due to the laws of ground warfare. With a clandestine operation, if an operator is caught, they are to be claimed by their host government, which can provide a casus belli.

-A covert operation places the emphasis of concealment on the identity of the operation’s sponsor. According to federal regulations, the Central Intelligence Agency is the only branch of the United States government that can conduct covert operations. The reason being is that a covert operation provides the government with deniability. If an operator on a covert mission is caught, the government can claim that they know nothing of the operation. At that point, said operator will probably be subjected to a long bout of torture before being executed by the enemy government. United States military service members can conduct covert operations so long as they are under the directive of the CIA. Using military personnel for Agency operations is known as being “sheep-dipped.”

This operation was conducted under the National Command Authority (the President and the Secretary of Defense), and thus it was a clandestine operation. However, given the politically sensitive nature of the mission, while on paper it would have been a clandestine mission, the SEALs should have treated it like a covert operation. They should have dressed in mufti and carried Kalashnikovs. Bond actually touches on why later on in the book: after two Iranian patrols are taken out by the SEAL team, VEVAK agents identify the weapons being used as 7.62x51mm NATO (the round of the SCAR-H used by the team sniper), and their Type III NWU are identified shortly thereafter. While it worked to add tension to the plot, it was an oversight, intentional or otherwise, that wouldn’t be missed in the real world.

Despite all of that, Exit Plan made for incredibly fun reading, and Bond crafts thrillers with the best of them. I’d definitely recommend the book to fans of the genre. While Iran has taken a backseat to terrorism and North Korea at the moment, it is still a relevant topic and Bond is keeping up with the times. It’s thrill-packed action and political intrigue at its finest.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Granted, this book is more of a SEAL story than a sub story. ln fact, the submarine in question, USS Michigan acts as a glorified taxi until the last 50 pages of the book.

An Iranian informer, connected with the nuclear development team is attempting to defect, and escape lran along with her husband. Simple plan, drive in an Ohio class sub and deploy a group of SEALs to a beach to retrieve them, piece of cake.

But that would make for a rather short and boring book. Soooooo problems come up and somehow Michigan XO gets tied into solving them.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one's more snoozer than entertainment. 3 of 10 stars

[Kevin Kazokas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Imagine absorbing an entire technical instruction manual, but not being able to absorb the context or dynamics of basic human interaction.

That conjuring aptly describes the experience of reading Larry Bond's "Exit Plan."

The reader should prepare for an abundance of military acronyms, jargon and technical explanation regarding submarine maneuvers and clandestine operation tactics, as well as detailed insight into U.S. Navy SEAL field practices and the armaments and spy equipment essential to the success of any covert U.S. mission. Bond's book encompasses the gamut -- field strategy right up to the political machinations of such operations at the highest levels of government -- but has a major blind spot: capturing the reader's empathy.

Despite the detailed description of military characteristics, offered to heighten the book's reality factor, Bond's characters appear wholly apparitional. The SEALS trapped in Iran and the two human assets they hope to exfiltrate -- the central plot element of this spy military thriller -- are like cutout projections, inserted into various battle and on-the-run situations without the gravity of their plight fully gripping the reader. Such is the cost of poorly defined characters.

Bond highlights some of his characters' idiosyncrasies, emotional weaknesses and aspirations across 407 thickly written, drawn-out pages, but he never fully gets to the root of what factors shaped such circumstances. Instead, the characters seem like hollow archetypes, leaving the reader feeling indifferent about their safe escape -- particularly the two spies the SEALS are trying to save who are downright whiny and unlikable. Worse, the novel's viewpoint renders some SEAL characters so silent they seemingly disappear for chapters at a stretch, making them feel like phantoms who reappear long after you've forgotten why they were originally there.

Bond also fails to captivate the reader's intrigue in moments of critical essence to his plot. For example, his description of a sudden explosion aboard a SEAL submersible craft, which leads to the entrapment of the SEALS on Iranian shores, reads more like a dispassionate after-action report than a thrilling adventure sequence of military fiction. Likewise, the book exudes a bit of Rambo or Chuck Norris muscularity in battle situations, leaving the reader feel as though the good guys are never truly in danger. This diminishes the suspense factor.

The book also desperately needs editing. Spelling and punctuation errors abound, to a distracting extent.

The author does build to an effective, rapidly paced battle sequence in the book's closing chapters, as well as to a poignant resolution in the epilogue. Nonetheless, this book never fully rises above typical genre-fiction. Those seeking an experience a cut above inevitably will feel disappointed, but fans of Vince Flynn and Brad Thor may revel in the techno-infused simplicity of this hide-and-seek, good guy/bad guy thriller.

This book rates 2 stars on the whole, but can rise to 3.5 situationally, such as between-novels beach-read or airport filler.

[Ric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess if one were to make a blurb for this book it could read: "timely as tomorrow's headlines ... an action-filled romp through military details only Larry Bond can deliver." Sure.

To be able to start and finish a Bond book, I make a tacit, unilateral agreement with Larry Bond, as follows:

I hereby commit to read through without twitching to the unlikely background events of the narrative, in the expectation of receiving a detailed account of an imaginary battle that will blow my mind.

And to the letter of this pact, Mr. Bond delivers in Exit Plan. Nevermind the one-sided viewpoint on politics, world affairs and Iran, there's much to distract in the military details ---a covert submarine, uber-SEALs, various Iranian and US military vehicles, armaments, and technology. There is a surfeit of dying and killing and skullduggery that may not be tolerable to readers, especially those who do not come into this with the above contract in place. But, on the advise of my legal counsel, these concerns are mooted by a preponderance of fun features, including: (1) a Green Beret(the movie)-like cavort through the Iranian coastline, (b) a The Hunt for Red October-like submarine dance, and (c)battles galore --- hand-to-hand, technology-filled, strategic, missile-backed, unmanned-overflight, boat-to-boat and torpedo-evading. Enough that one cannot say Mr. Bond did not keep his end of the deal.

Mr. Bond has found a winning formula, continuing from his earlier books such as Red Phoenix and Vortex, keeping long on the details of military armements and strategy and paying just enough attention to the narrative to keep the story going. One wonders how he actually knows about the battle order of Iranian and Israeli commands but he makes it sound so real that one does not question but rather assumes the accuracy of the facts (a trick one Dan Brown has played before). Anyway, go ahead and purchase a ticket. It's an enjoyable show. Just do it soon. The blurb "timely as tomorrow's headline" could just as quickly become "yesterday's headline." Reality can trump fiction, if you delay too much.

[Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I borrowed this for my 15 year old son who loves it and has re-read it several times. To stay hep with the young generation I read it too. It's a cartoon like thriller about SEAL special operations forces and an Iranian nuclear bomb and the exfiltration of an Iranian spy to a US submarine lurking in the Persian gulf. So long as the story sticks to the action on the ground with the commandos it's an engaging adventure story, with plausible action scenes and careful descriptions of different kinds of weapons and tactics. And when I say plausible, I don't mean to suggest that 5 SEAL commandos would likely be able to kill 35 Iranians in a 3 day rampage through the backroads of the Iranian coast, but rather that the descriptions feel like fighting and are possible to imagine. The plausibility is of a movie sort and I was willing to surrender to the artist's vision. In contrast, the dialogue and plausibility of the Presidential level and diplomatic discussions is much lower - laughable really. The whole thing is an awkward mess, but perfectly acceptable as a diverting adventure and a way to bond with your teenager.

[Doug Curfew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Holy typos. Very unsatisfying ending.

[Ned Frederick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A stellar example of the genre. I liked this book but it didn't really shine until the last 100 pages. I spent the first 2/3 of the book amused, entertained but annoyed by the politicians and military brass who seem more interested in not upsetting our enemies than completing this globally significant mission and protecting our folks on the ground. Without revealing too much ... There is a SEAL team stuck in coastal Iran with critically important intelligence. There is a lot of maneuvering to position the SEAL party so they can escape on their own by stealing a boat or plane, when it would seem obvious to just send in a stealth helo to extract them. Maybe I'm missing something, but a lot of this tramping about and hiding from the Basij and Pasdaran seemed so unnecessary albeit fun to read about. So I ended up enjoying the story but annoyed with the ineptitude of the politicians and military brass for missing such an obvious solution. And maybe a little annoyed with the author as well for not coming up with a premise to support the fun but implausible plot he ended up choosing.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Larry Bond has been slipping quite a bit lately, what with the co-authored books which are kind of lame and seemed to have just become another has been. In "Exit Plan", though, Bond brings back his A game. He must have written this one himself. I could hardly put it down. It even seemed realistic. Very good SEAL action, naval action, submarine warefare...this book has it all it seems.

However, perhaps most interesting is the outstanding job the author does of describing the terrain inside Iran. Not sure if Bond just did a great job in research, or if he actually was foolish enough to visit the country in person and risk his rear end. (It seems to me he may very well have been there).

Lots of action, well plotted and written action scenes, and overall EXIT PLAN is a great read.

[Skip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Larry Bond used to write amazing thrillers: conflicts likely to escalate into world war. His most recent books about Jerry Mitchell do not measure up although this one was better than Dangerous Ground. Iran's nuclear weapons program is a disaster so their leadership decides to fake success in the hopes of provoking a military response. A scientist and her husband, a security officer, are trying to defect with the truth, when a series of problems arise during the extraction.

[Jon Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always enjoy Larry Bond novels. Great to have the detail and accuracy of the various weapons technologies. This was a well constructed story which kept me turning the pages. Not everyones cup of tea but I found it very enjoyable.

[G.H. Eckel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A team of SEALs land on Iranian soil to extract several high-value undercover operatives. But the wheels fall off the operation and they're stuck without a way to escape as the Iranian army converges on their location.

An entire novel about getting out of Iran. Wow, that's certainly not a high concept. But, Larry Bond is a very good writer. He's able to write about every second of the four-day adventure with stunning clarity and detail. The book drags in many parts because he's so granular in his descriptions. But the world he creates with words is masterful.



Oddly, that's almost all of the plot right there. I won't say if the SEALs make it. There is some exciting submarine warfare at the end. And that's it! Good writing, overwritten sometimes, but a study in what it feels like to be caught behind enemy lines.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cover illustration of Exit Plan, with its images of a firefight involving a rapid patrol gunboat in action, makes it abundantly clear (even to those unacquainted with Larry Bond’s work in both novels and wargame rules) that this book is not about entrepreneurs trying to figure out their respective corporate inflection points and endgames. To be sure, this novel might more accurately be entitled, Extraction Plan. An extraction of a valued resource from the clutches of the so-called Republican -Clancy thrillers, has to do.

Remember that Larry Bond’s forte is naval warfare, having served as a naval referee for NATO exercises, but in this story, everything possible seems to go wrong and Mitchell finds himself trying to command a naval SEAL team that understands shore-based combat better than he does. So, in addition to all of the problems the team encounters within the 500+ pages of the book, there is a sense of the SEAL leader and the XO from the extraction-assigned submarine butting heads and tangling antlers like bucks in rutting season. And that’s on the side of the “good guys!”

One thing to appreciate about Bond is that the stories use but do not abuse military technology. The story makes no excuses for the failures of military technology and, indeed, some of the failures of superior technology end up enhancing the story and make it more fascinating. Another thing I like about the stories is that Bond isn’t afraid to pile up body count, but the story isn’t just about body count. In fact, the story is much about how people react to the high body count certain operations are likely to increase.

Exit Plan involves an Iranian nuclear weapons plan that may or may not be similar to Iran’s nuclear program as we know it today. It also involves a highly unlikely air warfare scenario in its denouement (which I cannot specify without ruining the power of those scenes)—something I never thought I’d read and something I hope never, ever happens. The U.S. President in the story is neither an Obama or a Trump, but one of his compromise decisions that precipitates the crisis seems like a decision Obama would make (a nuclear submarine both does and doesn’t trespass into Iranian waters resulting from the President’s compromise decision). The political constraints on military action resonate with my limited outsider knowledge of Washington, so I was easily able to become fascinated by the political wrangling inside the fictitious administration.

Bond knows Washington insiders, Navy SEALs, and staff-ranked officers. As a result, the action is unleashed with a ring of authority. In Exit Plan, Bond’s knowledge of SEAL culture was vital as plan after back-up plan after back-up plan runs afoul of the antagonist, a high-ranking Iranian intelligence official. The “major” whose position with the “secret police” trumps all other law enforcement authorities, makes all the seeming right moves, only to be countered (to some extent) in nearly every one of his plans by SEALs who are unsatisfied with having one back-up plan or even two. The process of getting to those back-up plans is fascinating.

Exit Plan may have one encounter that summons the “Reality Police” into my consciousness, but even the way that scene works out is fascinating, technologically evolved, and anxiety-producing. I felt like I was pulling “G”s myself during those segments. I particularly enjoyed the description of the carrier deck with four catapults launching planes: “Imagine the precision of a ballet combined with the noise and danger of a stock car race, where the stock cars are carrying high explosives.” (p. 514)

Finally, for those readers who know I hate epic novels where one jumps from one character to another, I must affirm that Bond knows exactly how to switch points-of-view so that one is rarely whiplashed and the dramatic tension is never lost. Exit Plan features significantly more than one “exit plan,” but it is an intense and exciting modern world thriller that any fans of the genre should love.

[Daniel Bratell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third book about submariner Jerry Mitchell, now XO on a submarine in the Persian Gulf. Next to Iran. Iran is the focus of this book, and it's interesting how little seem to have changed since the book's story.

The background story is Iran's nuclear program, and it involves spies, SEAL teams, airplanes, submarines, global politics and everything else I expect from a Larry Bond book. It all comes together rather well, and despite a few comments, I think Bond has again written a story that seems plausible. This could happen. Kind of.

[Nigel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading the third of the Jerry Mitchell is a case of one extreme to another. In my reviews of the first two book I criticised the amount of repetitive descriptions of day to day life on board a submarine and the lack of ‘normal’ Larry Bond type action. Exit Plan is the complete opposite. Only a small percentage of the action even takes place on a submarine, and I think the book as a piece of entertainment is better for being more action and less routine life.
An unfortunate set of circumstances sees Jerry forced to pilot a SEAL deployment submarine to the coast of Iran for what should be routine extraction of a defecting Iranian nuclear scientist and her husband. A fire on board the deployment submarine forces the team to abandon it, which leaves Jerry and the surviving SEALS in Iran with no way back to their parent submarine.
What follows is nerve stretching trek across Iran in a desperate bid to escape with the defector and her information intact as each more desperate escape plan fails will they complete their mission?
By far the best of the Jerry Mitchell series so far and gives me hope for the remainder.

[Darcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this story on sale and found myself missing Larry Bond. I had read some of this stuff years and years ago but had lost touch. My mistake. This is the third book in a series featuring Jerry Mitchell and it was well worth the time. This is a tale about Iran's abortive nuclear program and how, in an effort to conceal their actual progress, they want a war with Israel. To prevent this a moraled scientist and her husband attempt to defect into the arms of a group of seals and a submarine off the coast. Of course, nothing goes to plan and the action starts.

The military tech is up to spec and the relations between the seal team, the defectors and the accidental inclusion of a submarine's XO, Jerry, really keep the story interesting and real. I found myself swept away by the events and could not wait to see what happened next. Fast, furious, and gritty, this is military fiction as it deserves to be written.

So, this means Larry will be getting more of my money, but deservedly so.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 3rd in the Jerry Mitchell series finds him onboard the USS Michigan on an operation to extricate people from Iran. Added to the mission when a team member is hurt Mitchel and the Seal Team find themselves in Iran on the run being hunted and trying to escape with people who can prevent a confrontation. Good read.

[Paul Downs · Rating 4 out of 5]

For what it is, very well done. I like that Bond doesn't over villianize the foreign opposition.

[Gertrud · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leuke thriller, er wordt iets teveel bij gehaald, maar desondanks spannend

[Michael Koch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is copyrighted 2012 and still feels very up to date almost a decade later. Both the plot line and the technology feel as if they could be used today even though other options might also exist. This was a tense plot in a well written book that I enjoyed considerably. The story uses Jerry Mitchell as the protagonist. The author has used this protagonist twice before. He is a naval flyer who suffered a serious injury and has been permanently grounded. Rather than quitting or taking a desk job, this protagonist has joined the submarine service where he is currently the executive officer of a nuclear powered boat currently supporting special forces.

The current environment of this story has Iran apparently close to building a fission weapon. However, the covert information is not 100% consistent. The US would prefer to be certain of the status of the Iran weapon before the US and its allies take any hostile action. The current operation requires a Seal team to extricate an Iranian nuclear scientist to clarify the actual status of the Iranian nuclear weapon. The protagonist becomes involved when one of the Seal pilots of the ingress / egress vehicle (a ‘mini’ submarine carried on a full sized submarine) is injured while enroute and cannot continue.

The plot continues as the ingress / egress vehicle is destroyed on the ingress and a new extraction plan must be developed. Hence the book title. The Iranians are aware that their nuclear scientist is missing, likely a spy. They are actively engaged in her recapture or death. Although the area is desolate, they are able to deploy draft and professional troops as well as militia. The story follows as a series sprints to egress, interspersed by actions, as the Seals, unable to evade all the patrols, brush up against the various Iranian forces who they are forced to fight.

The situation becomes more dire as Iranian patrols become larger and better equipped, and the Seals begin to take casualties. As the situation worsens, our protagonist proposes an out of the box solution. While this proposal utilizes the strengths of the unwounded Seals without stretching the wounded and civilians beyond their capabilities, it is controversial and requires the Seals to go outside their comfort zone. Everything is agreed and the climax is as exciting as imaginable.

This was an exciting story and a good read. I thought the plot was just a little incredulous in one or two places, however this did not impact the quality of the story. I will be looking for more from Larry Bond. Four & half stars.

[Georgianne Giese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Channeling Red Storm Rising

This is one of the most mesmerizing stories I have read in over three decades. Although I had to overlook some of the complex (to me) technical details, the tactics were almost unbelievable but completely spell binding. The story had me reflecting upon how the strategy of fear that drives office and public politics ultimately backfires, verses how the strategy of reward and individual motivation entices mankind forward, despite pitfalls.

[Stephen S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Action Novel

The Jerry Mitchell series, although written almost a decade ago continues the saga of the protagonist, Jerry Mitchell. Great action and believable political machinations along with realistic submarine operations combine to make the series a must read for fans of this kind of thriller

[Raymond · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a nonstop action thriller based in Iran but also involves USA, Israel and astounding submarine warfare and stealth activities.
There is breathtaking activities and adventure for a seal team and an Iranian USA agent being in pursuit in enemy territory in Iran and amazing support from a USA submarine which also has to endure an attack from and Iranian submarine.

[Carl Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Larry Bond is an excellent author. This is a very good book. It was a little bit of a slow read for me. It took a while to get going, but was actually pretty good once you got into it. It was a good storyline with a good plot and characters. This is an older book so it’s a little outdated for today’s world events, but not by much. It’s still a scary world we live in.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

another great Jerry Mitchell novel. more about Jerry in this one. he got married!!
Good book.

[Michael Goulette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plenty of action and twists. A good book top escape from reality for a few minutes. It started to get gripping at about 80%. The ending was good but wrapped up too quickly. I'm giving it 4+ stars.

[Lewis Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very good book.

[Roger Scherping · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most exciting books I've read in over a year. Realistic, detailed and fast moving, I enjoyed it immensely.