Intercept Book

3.5 stars

When four of the world's most dangerous terrorists are released from Guantanamo Bay due to an Appeal Court Judge deeming their incarceration unlawful; the US military goes into meltdown with frustration. The CIA attempts to track the terrorists back to Afghanistan only to lose them.

With the CIA and Military convinced that it's only a matter of time before a terrorist attack occurs; there is only one person that can be relied upon to locate and assassinate the terrorists; former US Navy SEAL Mack Bedford. Can Mack kill the terrorists before they attack again or is not even he up to this near impossible task?

The blurb describes Intercept as "a breathtaking and unputdownable action thriller", what it neglects to continue on to say is "from about chapter four onwards". The preface and first three chapters were verbose, unnecessary and almost boarded on a personal rant by author Patrick Robinson. The blurb clearly states that the terrorists are released, so why that needed to be so painfully prolonged from a preface and three chapters instead of just a preface, I don't know. It seemed to me that Robinson had done a lot of research on this subject and was keen to include it all, no matter how much it took away from the plot. I detest this and it's the worse thing a writer can do to their book in my opinion.

Having said all that, things finally took a turn in the right direction from chapter four. The plot begins to thicken; the red herrings appear, leaving you guessing; characters from the first book show up and the suspense actually starts to build; just like you would actually expect from Robinson on a good day.

I liked that a lot of the characters from Diamondhead (the first of the four books in this series) were back and that we got to know a bit more about them. Although Mack is clearly the hero, I'm fast developing a soft spot for Jimmy, who tells it like it is.

Despite the excruciating slow start, I still recommend Intercept. It's a solid read in the genre of military thrillers and suspense and best of all, written well enough that you can read it as a stand alone book; although I would recommend reading the books in order.

To play along with my book bingo and to see what else I'm reading, go to #ktbookbingo and @kt_elder on Instagram.

(I read the paperback version of Intercept, published by Canelo but this edition is not listed as an option to choose from.)