Arctic Wargame (Justin Hall # 1) [Kindle Edition]

Ethan Jones (Author)

Book Description

ARCTIC WARGAME is the first book in the wildly popular Justin Hall spy thriller series, hitting the Amazon's Top 10 Best Sellers lists in 2012 and 2013.

Canadian Intelligence Service Agent Justin Hall--combat-hardened in operations throughout Northern Africa--has been demoted after a botched mission in Libya.

When two foreign icebreakers appear in Canadian Arctic waters, Justin volunteers for the reconnaissance mission, eager to return to the field. His team discovers a foreign weapons cache deep in the Arctic, but they are not aware that a spy has infiltrated the Department of National Defense.

The team begins to unravel a treasonous plan against Canada, but they fall under attack from one of their own. Disarmed and stripped of their survival gear, they are stranded in a remote location. Now the team must race against time not only to save themselves, but their country.

ARCTIC WARGAME is an action-packed spy thriller in the bestselling tradition of Portrait of a Spy, Rules of Betrayal and The Bourne Identity. Readers will enjoy a great tale of courage, fear and betrayal.

The bonus content includes the prologue and the first six chapters of TRIPOLI'S TARGET, the second book in this series, which came out in October 2012 and reached the Amazon's Top 10 Best Sellers lists in 2012 and 2013.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"ARCTIC WARGAME puts unique characters in an unusual place, which is becoming more important to the entire world. There's a lot of action in a very cold, but very important part of the world." -- Larry Bond, author of New York Times bestselling thrillers Vortex, Cauldron, and The Enemy Within, and co-author of Red Storm Rising with Tom Clancy.

"Loved the book and would like to read the next one." -- D. P. Lyle, MD, author of the Samantha Cody thriller series and the Dub Walker thriller series.

"Laden with action, compelling figures, and intriguing settings, this is a great read." -- David Freed, author of Flat Spin and a Pulitzer Prize winner.

"Always looking for new series, and this one is a great intro to Canadian Special Forces man, Justin Hall. ... Smooth with dialogue and paints a vivid picture, with great pace." -- Adrian Magson, author of the bestselling Harry Tate spy thriller series.

About the Author

Ethan Jones is the author of the wildly popular Justin Hall spy thriller series. The first book in this series, ARCTIC WARGAME, came out in May 2012. The second novel, TRIPOLI'S TARGET, was released in October 2012. The third one, FOG OF WAR, will come out on June 4, 2013. Ethan has also published three short stories. He is a lawyer by trade, and he lives in Canada with his wife and son.

Product Details

• File Size: 556 KB
• Print Length: 334 pages
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0084FH6M8
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #50,075 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The arctic trails have their secret tales May 21, 2012

By Aaron C. Brown TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition

Arctic Wargames is a conventional thriller set along the Davis Strait in the far northeast of Canada. The strongest character is the setting itself which interacts with the story at key points in unexpected ways. The book is much less interesting when events move south of the Arctic Circle. Unfortunately, the author is unable to maintain a steady awareness of the northern environment. When necessary for the plot, aspects like intense cold, difficulty of distinguishing ice-covered solid ground from ice-covered water and the experience of using different types of vehicles under arctic conditions; are described with accuracy, but these same things are forgotten in the next scene.

The plot is logically consistent and clever, although gleefully absurd as befits the genre. The author plays fair. The incredible premise is set out clearly with no surprise inventions later in the book. And as far from reality as the events are, there is a core of real geography and politics. You'll probably need a good map and a little research into territorial disputes in land of the midnight sun to make sense of things, or you can forget all that and just cheer for the good guys to blow up the bad guys. Arctic Wargames has a tight pace, steadily building to a satisfying climax with just enough backstory, foreshadowing and multithreading to keep things interesting. The author does a good job of avoiding predictable step-by-step storytelling without ever forgetting that this is a thriller that has to drive relentlessly forward.

Once you get beyond plot, pacing and setting, the book has some weaknesses. The characters are stock and unappealing. That's not uncommon for a thriller nor, for many readers, much of a disadvantage. Ethan Jones is not pretending to be Jane Austin. Still, I like a little humanity even in someone whose main attribute is statistically improbable survival and whose main function is to cause spectacular destruction at just the right time. The only slightly interesting twist is that the main character is Canadian who denounces US jingoism at every opportunity, while displaying extreme violent nationalism untroubled by considerations of legality or human rights, and without discernible morality or philosophy. This might be parody, but I suspect it's just a silly attempt to make the book more politically correct, like when James Bond gave up smoking.

More seriously for a thriller, the dialog is weak and the action scenes are not compelling. Most dialog is directed at the reader, describing things both characters already know and not sounding in the least natural. The phrasing gives no clue about the character or attitude of the speaker, and there are no great lines to savor. The action scenes bog down in description or dialog when they should be moving relentlessly forward, the main action sequence splits into too many parts without clarity about relative positions or timing and the author inexplicably skips over some of the best parts.

Overall, this is a pretty good thriller, with most of the flaws of the genre. Its setting, plot and pacing make it above average, but its dialog, characters and action sequences prevent it from being more than pretty good.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Adequate, but not much more July 13, 2012

By Joshua Mauthe

Format:Kindle Edition

The most unique aspect of Arctic Wargame is the fact that it centers on an elite military unit...based in Canada. Indeed, a lot of the book orbits around a potential war between Canada and Denmark, and it's fascinating to watch these events play out with America being reduced to a background role, and not always a heroic one at that. Sadly, that's about the only truly compelling aspect of Arctic Wargame, which otherwise is a perfectly serviceable, if unremarkable, military thriller. The characters are relatively generic; from the alpha-male hero to the evil mastermind working for the villains, you've seen these characters before, and none of them are particularly complex here. That's fine for novels like this, which are more about the action; sadly, the action here is overly complex, and Jones often loses the reader in battles which lose all sense of geography or direction. Still, I could usually understand the general sense of the battles, but the bigger problem was this: I never really cared that much who won or lost, and that's a big problem with a big action-based book. In the end, it's not as though Arctic Wargame is particularly bad - the characters are serviceable, the plot interesting enough, the action adequate. But it's never all that good, either, and by the end, it was more dull than anything else - and that may be worse than being really "bad".

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to the world of Canadian Clandestine Services May 21, 2012

By William D. Curnutt TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition

This new author has written a good introductory war / spy novel that has some very good points to it but also has a few rough spots in the writing. I personally don't let the rough spots bother me as I believe each writer gets better with each book.

Ethan did send me a copy of this book in advance of it being published, and I want to thank him for allowing me the privilege of reading it early. His blog is at [...]
NOW FOR THE REVIEW OF THE BOOK

Justin Hall and Carrie O'Connor work for the Canadian Secret Service. Their task, find threats and eliminate them before they can harm the country of Canada.

Their task in this book is to stop an invasion of Canada by the country of Denmark. Now if that doesn't make you stop and ask the question, "Really?" Why would Denmark want to invade Canada? Well they have a very specific reason, they want to control the shipping routes through the North Arctic sea lanes.

What's interesting is that it really isn't Denmark that is trying to invade Canada. The group is really from Russia, but they are using Denmark as the 'fall guy' for the invasion.

Justin and Carrie along with several co-workers must unearth the threat, find a way to resolve the threat and do all of this without bringing Canada into any real political, military or economic turmoil. I mean, really, how would it look for Canada to attack Denmark to stop an invasion on their Arctic soil? Who would believe it was necessary? But that's just the point. If they do nothing then Denmark (or is it Russia) will invade, take control of several towns and the shipping lanes and bring economic havoc upon the country of Canada.

So, with the help of villagers who live in the Arctic region (Eskimos) they must stop an invasion. But they also must battle the hostile environment of the Arctic. Could you effectively fight off an invading force when it's 20 degrees below zero?

Justin and Carrie fight off all odds, bring about a decisive victory and do it all while on shaky ground with their own country who doesn't believe that there is a threat.

But in doing all this several good people will give up their lives, even close associates will be harmed and even one associate will turn out to be a traitor.

NOW SOME MORE COMMENTS ON ETHAN'S WRITING STYLE;

Ethan develops each of his characters well. He develops the plot of the book well. He has his technical material down pat. There may be some scenario's that seem implausible, but he makes you believe that they can happen, do happen and that the human spirit can overcome all obstacles.

As I said earlier, Ethan hits a few rough patches in the writing. Some times I felt that we were jerked from one scene to another and then back again. But I believe that his writing style is good and should improve well with future writing.

At the end of this book he will give you a preview of his next book involving Justin and Carrie. I found that for me it appeared the writing was improving, the story was interesting and I can't wait for it to get published as well.

I'm excited for Ethan and believe that he will become one of my author's to follow in the years to come.

If you like military / spy type novels you will enjoy Ethan's book.

More About the Author

Ethan Jones is the author of the wildly popular Justin Hall spy thriller series. The first book in this series, Arctic Wargame, came out in May 2012. The second one, Tripoli's Target, was released in October 2012. The third book, Fog of War, will come out on June 4, 2013. Ethan has also published three short stories. He is a lawyer by trade, and he lives in Canada with his wife and son.

To learn more about Ethan's current and future works and to read exclusive author interviews, books excerpts and book reviews, visit Ethan's blog: http://ethanjonesbooks.worpress.com