It's been a month since I found out about "The Trident Deception" by Rick Campbell, and I finally found time to read it. OK, I've been reading a lot, and I also read "Punk's War" by Ward Carroll, and "Tales of a Cold War Submariner" by Dan Summitt at the same time, so it was more about finding time to sit down and write a brief review despite it having been a couple of weeks since I finished it, but more about those later.
So, in short, regarding "The Trident Deception", I'll jump straight to my recommendation - buy it and read it!
If you need a few more words, it is one the best I've read since Tom Clancy, God rest his soul, penned "The Hunt for Red October" back in the year I got married, one year before I left the USS William H. Bates. It's that good!...
Written by Rick Campbell, a former boat sailor himself, who wrapped up his naval career as XO of the USS Maryland (SSBN-783), "The Trident Deception" is a captivating submarine-centric thriller that I found very hard to put down. I even found myself dragging my feet in the final third, reluctant to end the story too soon!
In the tradition of Clancy, the "Trident Deception" is a complex thriller that intrigues and surprises. Set in 'present day', the deteriorating conditions in the Middle East force desperate Israeli leadership to compromise U.S. security in a effort to trigger a nuclear attack on enemies of Israel initiated by an American ballistic missle submarine, the USS Kentucky. The story rolls right along, with more than enough submarine specifics to make the narrative authentic and compelling. For those of us sensitive to such things, when the details sound suspicious, refer to the author's qualifier regarding changes made to make the security screening cut!
From the website, "When Israeli Intelligence confirms Iran will complete assembly of its first nuclear weapon within a month, and the Israeli Security Council decides the Iranian facility must be destroyed. But the Iranian weapon complex is buried deep underground and can be destroyed only by a nuclear strike. The political implications of using nuclear weapons against Iran are severe, so the Prime Minister authorizes a Mossad operation that results in launch orders being transmitted to a U.S. ballistic missile submarine."
"As the USS Kentucky transits to within launch range, the Pacific Fleet is sortied to prevent the unthinkable. But will the Kentucky be detected and sunk before the crew completes its mission, or will the ship's 24 nuclear tipped missiles unleash a holocaust of unprecedented proportion?"
"Although THE TRIDENT DECEPTION is a submarine warfare novel at its core, it’s also an intriguing espionage tale, following the President's National Security Advisor as she traverses a web of deceit in her attempt to unravel and thwart the Mossad plot and expose its conspirators. The novel also explores the moral dilemma posed by the use of nuclear weapons - what our submarine crews are trained to do and the internal conflicts that arise as they struggle to execute their launch order. The outcome becomes even more unpredictable when a father is ordered to hunt down his only son."
If you have mourned the loss of Tom Clancy, and are eager to find a good story that carries on the tradition, I can't recommend "The Trident Deception" by Rick Campbell enough.
Bravo Zulu, Rick!
You can find out more about The Trident Deception, as well as read the first 3 chapters at: rickcampbellauthor.com. If you like what you read, you can order it on Amazon through our Ship's Store if you are interested, so click on the image, and remember that every purchase through our store throws a few percent of the purchase price into the Rec Fund!
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