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A review by weaselweader
Arctic Gambit by Larry Bond
4.0
A 21st century WW III submarine thriller
Readers who enjoy submarine thrillers will fondly recall the palpable, stomach-churning frisson of suspense that Tom Clancy generated when he created the genre with THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER almost four decades ago. Competing against that kind of a standard is obviously not a problem for Larry Bond. His scenario in which the USSR has crafted the technology to break the deadlock of Mutually Assured Destruction and execute a crippling, decisive, and unanswerable pre-emptive nuclear first strike on Washington DC and other mainland cities is convincing. Bond uses the scenario as a canvas on which to paint scenes of submarine warfare, innovative technology and political statecraft in broad, decisive strokes. ARCTIC GAMBIT is a page-turner. No doubt about it!
On a marginally related side note, my impressions of Hardy Lowell as a fictional president (by comparison to the reality of dearly departed Mr Trump), were all over the map. In short, Lowell was everything that Trump was not – decisive, intelligent, strong, informed, a powerful leader, a loving husband, courageous … The USA can be very grateful that Mr Bond’s novel, published in 2018 during Trump’s presidency, occurred strictly in his imagination. If it were based in reality, I’m convinced that you and I would not be here reading today.
Paul Weiss
Readers who enjoy submarine thrillers will fondly recall the palpable, stomach-churning frisson of suspense that Tom Clancy generated when he created the genre with THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER almost four decades ago. Competing against that kind of a standard is obviously not a problem for Larry Bond. His scenario in which the USSR has crafted the technology to break the deadlock of Mutually Assured Destruction and execute a crippling, decisive, and unanswerable pre-emptive nuclear first strike on Washington DC and other mainland cities is convincing. Bond uses the scenario as a canvas on which to paint scenes of submarine warfare, innovative technology and political statecraft in broad, decisive strokes. ARCTIC GAMBIT is a page-turner. No doubt about it!
On a marginally related side note, my impressions of Hardy Lowell as a fictional president (by comparison to the reality of dearly departed Mr Trump), were all over the map. In short, Lowell was everything that Trump was not – decisive, intelligent, strong, informed, a powerful leader, a loving husband, courageous … The USA can be very grateful that Mr Bond’s novel, published in 2018 during Trump’s presidency, occurred strictly in his imagination. If it were based in reality, I’m convinced that you and I would not be here reading today.
Paul Weiss