Thursday 30 April 2009

Wyatt's Hurricane

Three cheers for the amazingness of Desmond Bagley everyone!

I reviewed Juggernaut a little while back, in which he made what seemed a rather boring thing (a rather large lorry travelling cross-country as a matter of fact) incredibly exciting. Well, given that, I was absolutely fascinated to see what he would make of something so full of potential excitement and drama as a hurricane. And I was in no way at all disappointed.

A hurricane in itself is a pretty good start for a thriller. But Desmond Bagley didn't bother to stop there. Oh no, and why should he? When you add in a military base of the Americans sat right in the path of the storm, the commander of which doesn't particularly want to listen to what his senior adviser Wyatt is telling him (which pretty much flies in the face of 'theory' although it is mentioned that this is pretty pointless), civil war in the country is on the verge of breaking out, and Wyatt is struggling with matters of the heart involving a woman he thought he'd never see again. The technical detail of the book is absolutely astounding. Either Desmond Bagley is a major expert on hurricanes, or he became one to write this book.

The civil war erupts, Wyatt gets captured, all sorts of exciting stuff happens. But I don't particularly want to spoil the book, so I'll stop at that. Suffice to say that it is an incredible piece of writing and firmly convinces me that Desmond Bagley is one of the best thriller writers of all time. Strongly recommend to everyone. Read it!!!

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