Thursday, July 28, 2022

Rising Tiger by Brad Thor

Thor’s 22nd Scot Harvath thriller.

The main political agenda in this book is the proposal to establish a NATO-like alliance between the US, India, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, An alliance that doesn’t sit well with the Chinese.

China and India have been at each other’s throats for decades over a border dispute. The two sides have come to some unique rules of engagement that limits hostilities mostly to hand-to-hand combat. After one particularly vicious confrontation, an unknown weapon levels many of the Indian soldiers.

A helicopter carrying military bigwigs falls out of the sky over India.

Eli Ritter, a former American ‘economic development officer (and FOH – friend of Harvath) is assassinated on a crowded street in Rajasthan, India.

Harvath’s friend, colleague, and information guru, known to most as just “Nicholas” (aka The Troll) is back in Virginia with his pregnant wife minding the home fires in his secluded home off the beaten track when the house is hit with some form of a microwave attack that puts the whole family (and his security team) in the hospital. It’s not wise to mess with Harvath’s clan of friends and operatives.

India assigns Asha, an RAW (research and analysis wing) officer from their intelligence service to investigate the helicopter crash. Harvath had just concluded an assignment in Afghanistan when he is diverted to Delhi to investigate Ritter’s murder. The US embassy loans out a retired police detective on the embassy’s staff, Vijay Chabra, to help Harvath navigate the streets/politics/underworld that is India.

The two investigations are conducted in parallel with Asha and Vijay/Scot each encountering progressively more ruthless adversaries that are met with increasingly broader and more liberal interpretations of Indian laws. The two investigations meet in an alley behind a bar with each staring down the other for control of a high level perp.

It I said that this was a typical Thor/Harvath story, you might think it’s more of the same. And maybe it is, but Thor has a way of keeping the story fresh and entertaining. One way he does this is to introduce new characters and the inclusion of Asha and Vijay are some of his best yet. I sure hope that they appear in future Harvath novels. Or they get their own storyline. Never know.

Bottom line. Thor always seems to deliver, even with #22. For those new to Thor/Harvath, each book is a standalone, but it never hurts to start from the beginning with The Lions of Lucerne. You’ll get hooked and will have a long line of thrillers to keep you entertained.

BTW. When one reads a thriller series like this, the thought turns to TV/movies. While Thor has optioned most (all?) of his books, nothing has happened. When asked who he thought would be a good choice to play Harvath, Thor replied, ‘Rupert Friend.’ Look him up on IMDB. Could be. It sometimes helps to put a face with a book character.

ECD

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