Review by Booklist Review
Alex Hawke returns in his most personal mission yet. After hearing a rumor that the love of his life might still be alive in Russia, he risks everything by heading into a potential death trap to uncover the truth. Meanwhile, strange events are ocurring around the globe. A mysterious force makes a submarine captain order the destruction of a cruise ship. A scientist kills his colleagues before turning the gun on himself. Before the situation escalates still further, Hawke is ordered to find the cause. As he globe-trots seeking answers, he fails to realize that a Russian hit squad is following his every move. The usually flamboyant Hawke is somewhat subdued this time around, but the story is tense and exciting. A perfect read-alike for Clive Cussler fans.--Ayers, Jeff Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
At the outset of bestseller Bell's exciting seventh thriller featuring MI6 agent Alex Hawke (after 2010's Warlord), Alex learns that his lost love, Anastasia Korsakova, the daughter of the present-day yet recently dead Russian czar, is still alive, held prisoner in a high-security Siberian KGB facility. While Alex fears he's being lured into a trap, he travels to Siberia, where Anastasia gives him their son, three-year-old Alexi, for safekeeping. Back in England, Alex throws himself into fatherhood while fending off assassins from an organization of Russian hard-liners who blame Alex for the czar's death. Meanwhile, an Iranian scientist known as Darius has built a computer dubbed Perseus that has almost attained parity with human intelligence. Alex must find Darius and Perseus in order to foil their dastardly plan for humanity. While the two distinct threats make for a sometimes disjointed plot, a terrific, final naval battle shows Alex at his fighting finest. Agent: Peter Lampack, Peter Lampack Agency. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
There's a new dimension to Alexander Hawke, the James Bond-like M16 operative whom men want to be and women want to bed. Hawke is now a devoted father to three-year-old Alexei, his son by the true love he must renounce. But both father and son are at the top of a Russian hit list, a problem Hawke must contend with as he goes about saving the free world. His adversary is an unseen force that is knocking out computer systems and causing disasters worldwide: rides go fatally awry at Disney World, a Russian submarine torpedoes an American cruise ship, a missile silo blows up in Alaska. Hawke heads the team sent to find and eliminate this force, which portends technological development of greater-than-human artificial intelligence. Verdict Quibbles about the ease of breaking the mother-child bond aside (Alexei's mother gives her son to Hawke), Hawke's seventh adventure (after Warlord) is an action-packed technothriller, climaxing in a naval battle in the Strait of Hormuz. As usual, Bell keeps the tone light and the level of derring-do high. Fine escapist fare. [See Prepub Alert, 9/19/11.]-Michele Leber, Arlington, VA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Strange disasters are occurring around the world. These disasters include the unexplained explosion of ABM missiles in their silos in Alaska and the unlikely sinking of a U.S. cruise ship by a Russian submarine in the Caribbean. The supervillain behind the mishaps is a monolithic supercomputer called Perseus, which sits 2001-like beneath the Persian Gulf. In his latest fanciful globetrotting adventure featuring British counterintelligence star Alex Hawke, Bell (Warlord, 2010, etc.) projects a future in which Artificial Intelligence has advanced to the point where its human creators can only hope to contain it. In fact, Perseus' increasingly nervous quadriplegic inventor, Dr. Darius Saffari, who answers to the government of Iran, can only pretend to control his creation anymore. The world is at risk. Before Hawke can short-circuit the evil black tower, he must survive a dangerous personal mission in Siberia to rescue his true love Anastasia, long thought dead. In a previous adventure, he killed an old-style imperialist ruler embraced as the new Tsar. Here, vengeful soldiers who remain loyal to the Tsar target both Hawke and Alexei, the 3-year-old son he never knew he had.A long novel that is short on suspense but still keeps the reader involved with its charmingly unflappable hero and narrative quirks, as well as the ease with which it unfolds on multiple continents, on land and sea and in air.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
