Tsar by Ted Bell

I took a break from the historical fiction and returned to a political thriller I received for Christmas.

Tsar is an acronym for a Russian corporation called Technology, Science, And Research owned by a genius who is a little off his rocker.

The Russian bear is awakening from its post break up slumber and the US and the Brits are concerned, opening up a new ultrasecret spy network based in Bermuda. The story opens up with our hero, Alex Hawke, sunbathing nude on an isolated beach in Bermuda when the topless skindiver lady surfaces with a bag full of shells (yeah, like this happens every day). Turns out she is the daughter of this Russian nut (tres coincidental). Meanwhile, the Tsar in waiting has a bomber running lose killing anyone they don't like, blowing up a prison, a birthday party for a Chechian (did I spell that right?) rebel, then the entire town of Salinas, Kansas. Hawke follows his new girlfriend to Russia to snoop around and stumbles across a plot to reestablish the former Soviet Union, seat a new Tsar and provoke the West into World War III-your average vacation for a spy, right?

Anyway, the plot moves along crisply, tracking the clues and double-crosses from Bermuda to Russia to a Russian prison (where Hawke is imprisoned with Putin of all people, patiently waiting to be placed back in power and return Russia to some level of sanity) back to Bermuda to an attack class sub to a hostage rescue operation on a blimp hovering over the Atlantic to Stockholm for the violent conclusion.

For the most part, this book has all the cliches of a political thriller: our fit, muscled, scar riddled hero who is the son of privilege and moves with the easy grace of an athlete, the breathtakingly beautiful femme fatale who happens to be the daughter of the bad guy and falls in love with the hero, SEAL team rescue, double agents who seem to know more than is plausible, flushing the bad guy out in public (entirely unrealistic...I chuckled when it happened saying to myself 'no way in hell'), violent end with our hero nearing death, miraculously recovering to live in a drunken haze of guilt and loss back in the Bermudian paradise. Political thriller novelists must have a boilerplate they follow.

anyway, this moved right along and might be a reasonable diversion. just realize it stretches the limits of believability. I was reminded of Bob Uecker's call of a pitch by the Wild Thing in the movie Major League, "Juuuuuust a bit outside" the realm of reality.

Cheers for a good year of interesting reading

East Coast Don