Tuesday 24 June 2008

Dead Hand - Harold Coyle

I read a lot of books and I couldn't possibly keep them all. Believe me, I have tried that in the past. My mother was a book horder and I caught the habit from here. However that has changed, spending two years on the road taught me to be more discerning. I no longer keep all of the books I read, the majority of them get passed on to friends or left in bus stops.

Every now and then a book comes along that I just cant blindly give away. "Dead Hand" by Harold Coyle is one of those books.

To be honest I cant imagine ever giving up one of his books as every one I've read has hooked me from the outset and I've ended up devouring them in a couple of days.

"Dead Hand" is a military thriller with a story of Epic Proportions! As the cover itself gives away, a huge asteroid hits the Russian tundra cauing terrible destruction and activating the "Dead Hand" that would fire all of the remaining Nukes.

So with that premise Nato moves to prevent the Dead Hand scenario and we have a terrific military adventure story.

Harold likes to show both sides in his stories and he does that here with a wonderful and absorbing manner. We follow the exploits of SAS, Foreign Legion and Spetnatz.

The characters are real men and you feel for them as they enter the field and have to deal with the terrible facts of modern warfare.

I was blown away by how good this book was. I really quite upset when it ended as I wanted more of his excellent work to feast my eyes with.

9/10