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Lachlan Fox #5
Red Ice
Just a few days after the conclusion of Liquid Gold, Lachlan Fox is thrown back into the midst of the action.
The dangerous and powerful Umbra organisation offers to trade a man they've taken hostage for one of their own operatives. The CIA claim they won't negotiate with terrorists, and Umbra begins to cut off the natural gas supply to Europe. This is just a small indication of the level of chaos they're prepared to inflict. Assassinations follow...
The pace is non-stop, the stakes are inconceivably high, and the villain a true megalomaniac... ex-Navy hero Lachlan Fox is seriously challenged.
411 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 1, 2010
7 people are currently reading
61 people want to read
About the author
James Phelan
35 books257 followersJames Phelan is the award-winning author of twenty-four novels and one work of non-fiction. He first studied and worked in architecture before turning to English/Lit, working five years at The Age newspaper, obtaining an MA (Writing) and PhD (Young Adult Literature).
Hachette has published his five geo-political thrillers: FOX HUNT, PATRIOT ACT, BLOOD OIL, LIQUID GOLD and RED ICE.
From 2010-2011, Hachette published the widely acclaimed ALONE trilogy of Young Adult post-apocalyptic/dystopian novels.
In 2013/2014, Scholastic published James' thirteen-book adventure series about the dream work THE LAST THIRTEEN. The multi-award winning series (2014 YABBA, COOL, KOALA awards) has been highly successful around the world, selling over a million copies in 18 months.
THE SPY (Hachette, 2013), was the first instalment in a new series of suspense thrillers with the protagonist Jed Walker, and is followed by THE HUNTED (2015), and KILL SWITCH (2015).
James is currently working on a follow-up trilogy to THE LAST THIRTEEN, more thrillers, and an illustrated middle-grade series titled GRANDPA SPIES.
James has taught writing at post-graduate level and regularly talks at schools, libraries and universities around the world. Since 2006 he has sold over 4 million copies of his books.
Hachette has published his five geo-political thrillers: FOX HUNT, PATRIOT ACT, BLOOD OIL, LIQUID GOLD and RED ICE.
From 2010-2011, Hachette published the widely acclaimed ALONE trilogy of Young Adult post-apocalyptic/dystopian novels.
In 2013/2014, Scholastic published James' thirteen-book adventure series about the dream work THE LAST THIRTEEN. The multi-award winning series (2014 YABBA, COOL, KOALA awards) has been highly successful around the world, selling over a million copies in 18 months.
THE SPY (Hachette, 2013), was the first instalment in a new series of suspense thrillers with the protagonist Jed Walker, and is followed by THE HUNTED (2015), and KILL SWITCH (2015).
James is currently working on a follow-up trilogy to THE LAST THIRTEEN, more thrillers, and an illustrated middle-grade series titled GRANDPA SPIES.
James has taught writing at post-graduate level and regularly talks at schools, libraries and universities around the world. Since 2006 he has sold over 4 million copies of his books.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
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January 28, 2011Never having read any of James Phelan's Lachlan Fox series before, RED ICE had to be approached as a standalone, which probably made for a different experience than that of the dedicated fan.
Lachlan Fox is an ex-navy operative turned investigative journalist, and in this book he's in France with friends, at the same time that the Russian Ambassador and his wife are assassinated. Despite being on holidays, Lachlan very quickly finds himself back in the action, in one of the all-time great car chase sequences. Followed by a very personal threat, a Russian criminal who escapes from law enforcement (via a plane to plane docking procedure), another great car chase, a lot of rushing around, a trip to Shanghai, and one of those impeding global catastrophe sort of threats.
Now I don't know if Lachlan Fox is always quite such an energiser bunny sort of character, but I'm guessing he probably is. In RED ICE he's beaten, chased, beaten, threatened, beaten, scared, beaten and happily saving the day. Honestly, I've no idea how he was still moving around by the end of the book. It certainly didn't seem to be down to much in the way of medical assistance, yet he absorbs it all, and keeps going, saving the world. Which is part of the whole point of these sorts of thrillers really. The one man against the threat (in this case a very James Bondish Russian villain whose supporters seem to have some seriously impressive gadgetry).
RED ICE is the 5th Lachlan Fox book and it's hard to tell exactly what's going on, but I'm guessing that this book ties up some ends from the rest of the series. There's definitely a lot of history between Fox and the others in the cast in this book - but not having read any of the earlier books made it all a bit difficult to follow. I think that's probably the best argument for not starting with RED ICE as I've done. Obviously this is a series that has a lot of relationship development within it - but it's hard to tell how successful it's been starting at what feels like the end.
In terms of a pure thriller, with a big global conspiracy, a nicely sinister villain and a one man to save the world scenario, RED ICE really tore along. In fact, this conspiracy actually worked well - probably because elements of it were so personalised. I'm definitely going to have to go back to the earlier books - finding out everything there is to know about Lachlan Fox is the least you can do when the man is just trying his hardest to save us all.
Lachlan Fox is an ex-navy operative turned investigative journalist, and in this book he's in France with friends, at the same time that the Russian Ambassador and his wife are assassinated. Despite being on holidays, Lachlan very quickly finds himself back in the action, in one of the all-time great car chase sequences. Followed by a very personal threat, a Russian criminal who escapes from law enforcement (via a plane to plane docking procedure), another great car chase, a lot of rushing around, a trip to Shanghai, and one of those impeding global catastrophe sort of threats.
Now I don't know if Lachlan Fox is always quite such an energiser bunny sort of character, but I'm guessing he probably is. In RED ICE he's beaten, chased, beaten, threatened, beaten, scared, beaten and happily saving the day. Honestly, I've no idea how he was still moving around by the end of the book. It certainly didn't seem to be down to much in the way of medical assistance, yet he absorbs it all, and keeps going, saving the world. Which is part of the whole point of these sorts of thrillers really. The one man against the threat (in this case a very James Bondish Russian villain whose supporters seem to have some seriously impressive gadgetry).
RED ICE is the 5th Lachlan Fox book and it's hard to tell exactly what's going on, but I'm guessing that this book ties up some ends from the rest of the series. There's definitely a lot of history between Fox and the others in the cast in this book - but not having read any of the earlier books made it all a bit difficult to follow. I think that's probably the best argument for not starting with RED ICE as I've done. Obviously this is a series that has a lot of relationship development within it - but it's hard to tell how successful it's been starting at what feels like the end.
In terms of a pure thriller, with a big global conspiracy, a nicely sinister villain and a one man to save the world scenario, RED ICE really tore along. In fact, this conspiracy actually worked well - probably because elements of it were so personalised. I'm definitely going to have to go back to the earlier books - finding out everything there is to know about Lachlan Fox is the least you can do when the man is just trying his hardest to save us all.
October 4, 2010
This is the fastest book I have ever read -- 3 hours! It ripped along, and after BLOOD OIL is my favourite Lachlan Fox book. Only criticism is that it felt a bit more like a Lee Child book, whereas Phelan's others have felt more like Le Carre meets Clancy. I hope he writes heaps more GOOD Fox books and does not plateau here!
January 2, 2021
Great read highly recommended great author
November 13, 2022
Never read car chases in a story before. Thrilling and a great story. I think reading the first stories of the series would have added more insight.
February 22, 2015
When Lachlan Fox, ex-CIA goes on a holiday to Paris with his friends, we know that its not going to be an ordinary holiday. Mix in some likeable larrikin Australian mate characters, a couple of love interests of time gone by and an action packed story in search for the truth against evil justice and downright corruption.
We learn all about protocols.....essentially secret addendums to treaties. Now one has surfaced, potentially changing life as we know it.....all against the backdrop of a G20 meeting.
Lachlan is in a race against time to find this protocol and ensure that it ends up in the right place, and not transferring the power to those with potentially corrupt and immoral ideology. Of course Lachlan is not quite sure where that right place is.
He constantly battles against the stereotypical oligarch in Babbage and this leads to some interesting twists in the story line.
Its an action packed good versus evil storyline, but James Phelan makes it an interesting one.
I listened to the audio version of this book and it was an interesting companion on some of my night time runs.....a great read.
We learn all about protocols.....essentially secret addendums to treaties. Now one has surfaced, potentially changing life as we know it.....all against the backdrop of a G20 meeting.
Lachlan is in a race against time to find this protocol and ensure that it ends up in the right place, and not transferring the power to those with potentially corrupt and immoral ideology. Of course Lachlan is not quite sure where that right place is.
He constantly battles against the stereotypical oligarch in Babbage and this leads to some interesting twists in the story line.
Its an action packed good versus evil storyline, but James Phelan makes it an interesting one.
I listened to the audio version of this book and it was an interesting companion on some of my night time runs.....a great read.
June 17, 2013
This is the 5th Lachlan Fox novel and would be a reasonable ending to the series, if there are no more novels. One problem I had with this was the superfluous characters, that in past books were more import. Al and Kate were there, but for no real reason. There presence didn't make sense as they didn't really contribute to the story all that much. They were like the uncle you had to invite to the wedding but didn't really want to. There were some structure problems with this story but still it was enjoyable enough as a bit of mindless reading.
June 12, 2015
Another great Lachlan Fox thriller!
This book has plenty of twists and turns that will keep you guessing! I have enjoyed the other books in this series and look forward to the next book. Note to the author: I found quite a few typos and grammatical errors that could have been caught, had another pair of eyes reviewed the story. I read a Kindle version of the book and perhaps it differs from the print edition.
This book has plenty of twists and turns that will keep you guessing! I have enjoyed the other books in this series and look forward to the next book. Note to the author: I found quite a few typos and grammatical errors that could have been caught, had another pair of eyes reviewed the story. I read a Kindle version of the book and perhaps it differs from the print edition.
January 4, 2018
I ordered this from the library after reading a review that said it was a 'thriller set in Paris'. There is no denying that description. Whilst I had my initial reservations - once I saw the description on the cover as being for fans of 'Ludlum etc.', which I'm not - it was totally unputdownable! Fast paced from cover to cover, it would make good escapist holiday reading.
May 3, 2016
I wasn't that wrapped in this book. There were a few things I felt were unlikely to happen and Fox did a few things that I didn't think he'd do.
Some of the interpersonal contacts felt stiff and unrealistic.
Some of the interpersonal contacts felt stiff and unrealistic.
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November 25, 2016good read
December 4, 2016
Another good Lachlan Fox yarn from James Phelan. Well worth a read.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews