Black Gold

Alpha Force #9

by Chris Ryan

Alpha Force are in the Caribbean, diving, when a sudden oil spill draws them into a new mission. All their skills — powerboating, scuba-diving and jetskiing — are needed when an underwater bomb explodes. And then an assassin strikes . . .

Genres: Action, Young Adult, Adventure, Fiction, Espionage, Ebooks, Childrens

328 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 2005

About the author

Colin Armstrong (b. 1961), usually known by the pen-name Chris Ryan, is a British author, television presenter, security consultant and former Special Air Service sergeant.
After the publication of fellow patrol member Andy McNab's Bravo Two Zero in 1993, Ryan published his own account of his experiences during the Bravo Two Zero mission in 1995, entitled The One That Got Away. Since retiring from the British Army Ryan has published several fiction and non-fiction books, including Strike Back, which was subsequently adapted into a television series for Sky 1, and co-created the ITV action series Ultimate Force. He has also presented or appeared in numerous television documentaries connected to the military or law enforcement.

Reviews

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally written: 28/08/19. Contains spoilers.

Yet another Alpha Force banger finished. They don't take long to read, but they're packed through with action so every book is a real trip. I'll have to look into the books Ryan has written for a grown up audience and see if any of them take my fancy.

I really enjoyed this one, too. Not quite as much as Fault Line, but it was still gripping. The environment is the subject of focus this time around; man-made disaster rather than natural disaster. How times-appropriate.

An oil tanker is sabotaged and crashed into the cliffs near a coral reef - a scam intended to result in the criminal behind it getting filthy rich. The oil leak destroys the local life systems and from then onwards, dead seabirds spend the rest of the book washing ashore. It's heartbreaking. This is in no small part due to the reality the plot is grounded in; greedy businessmen would rip the Earth in two if they thought a bit of cash would come fluttering out of the cracks.

In less reality-grounded news, Alpha Force happen to be at the scene when the crash takes place and they're hot on the case to discover the truth of what happened. (Seriously though, how has no one found these kids out yet?)

Here's a question I was left with at the end: their plan to save Chairman Bowman from the crooks included them letting said crooks dose the guy up with sleeping pills before throwing him over the side of a boat. He swallowed two and after being dunked, was saved by Alex who was lying in wait, but we know that they had a bottle full of the pills, so what would Alpha Force have done if he had been made to take a whole bunch of them?

The crooks had already made Bowman write his own suicide note, so why take the risk of him only taking two pills and believing he'd sleep for long enough to drown, rather than making him take enough to overdose before dumping him overboard? As long as he was still alive when he hit the water, he would still take salt water into his lungs. It just would have been more efficient of them.

Not that I want them to be especially efficient, and I suppose there has to be a certain level of incompetency involved for Alpha Force to win this one.

Li jumped the hitman (not unlike Fonzie jumping the shark in the Sixties), which I'll give a pass to because it's a kids book and it's cool. I liked the team becoming underwater explorers; the diving segments were some of my favourites, and I also noticed that the kids are actually more grown up than they were when these books started. Usually, with books of this kind, they just stay the same vague teen-ish age forever.

The environmental aspect of this book was really interesting; their dives into the reef and factoids about ocean life were great, as was Amber's brief undercover stint in the house of the man behind the crash, which culminated in the aforementioned hitman trying to drown her in a salt pan before chasing her through a sugar cane field, after which she took a very strategic dive into the ocean.

That leads me to another thing I love about these books; consequences. Were this any other book series, Amber would still have been fighting fit after all that, but no. She spends the remainder of the book recuperating from the after effects of her near-drowning and her dive from thirty foot. Earlier, Hex and Paulo both get banned from further diving after suffering the bends and as such, they stay out of the water from there on out. I love that we see how this stuff works in reality. No action film physics here.

James Bond who? I only know Alpha Force.

[I.H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really wish I was enjoying these books as much I did when I was younger. Oh, how I read them over and over again back then. But now, there's just something about the series that keeps injecting cringe into my veins and I can't quite put my finger on it. Still great stories and plots, though, not going to lie. It is worth reading them again as an adult.

What a wishy-wash review. Oh well, it's only for myself.

[Genevieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of action! It never stops. Also really full of information on marine life and how oil can impact the ecosystem in so many ways 😢

[St Stephen's C C]

Target: Assassin! The five members of Alpha Force are training in the Caribbean when an oil tanker runs aground, spilling oil - black gold - into the seas. Diving down to the stricken tanker, Alpha Force soon discover that all is not as it seems. But they will need all their skills and ingenuity - powerboating, scuba diving, jet skiing - when a bomb explodes and an assassin strikes ...High-octane thrills from a master of adventure, bestselling author, TV presenter and an ex-SAS hero CHRIS RYAN. Includes Chris Ryan's top SAS tips on Safety and Survival in and around water.

[El · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well written! I would recommend all the Alpha Force series to 13's and over, as they can sometimes be quite gory and younger children should not know about some of the things that go on in the stories.
e.g. - slightly macabre murders, glue-sniffing by street-kids, children getting killed, gory descriptions. Almost every book starts with a murder.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

At some parts it was really interesting, though others were a bit tedious, not in a way that nothing happened, there was just always something, which made it (in my opinion) harder to read at some point. Still well written and good, definitely worth the read!

[Will Phillipson · Rating 3 out of 5]

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