Customer Reviews

Checkmate

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

At Bandaq Technologies, Cameron "Cammy" Talbot leads a team of brilliant technocrats in developing the ultimate missile defense program. She and her crew ignore the Star Wars initiative of shooting the projectile out of the sky. Instead they concentrate on a program that takes control of an incoming missile's guidance system in order to reverse it; hitting the initiator. Due to unsavory lobbying her program is in jeopardy as Congress considers moving funding to a rival firm supporting the Star Wars initiative.

Still as Cammy and cohorts make major progress, Muslims steal three Pakistani cruise missiles, firing one at India. This terrorist group intends to take over Kashmir as they expect India to reciprocate leading to an all out war with nukes between India and Pakistan.

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Hunt Daniels meets Cammy when someone tries to kill her. They each feel a strong attraction to one another while someone wants her new technology stopped before completion with her dead before it can be used to prevent a deadly nuclear war.

The premise of this tale is superb, but Karna Small Bodman is unable to decide between a romantic suspense and a nuclear countdown thriller; the reader gets some of both, but the sum of the parts does not quite make a cohesive whole. Still the story line is fun to follow as Cammy races against time to prove her concept works even as she ponders whether Hunt is the hunk who makes her feel complete. Congress seems realistic as money speaks in spite of the cost to the world. Overall this is a fine novel that will please fans of final countdowns to pending disaster with a romantic subplot weaved into the last digits.

Harriet Klausner

If you enjoy fast paced books with intrigue and government inside angles...this is a great read. Fasten your seat belts and have fun!
I normally do not read this type of literature, but enjoyed this romp. If you are a fan of The Last Templar, etc., you will want to read this book.

This book by Bodman was one that I had a little trouble reading. I finished it and enjoyed it but the plot and storyline got a little sidetracked for me by the government speak and military speak. I know, I know it was a story which involved the government and military,but sometimes for me anyway, they seemed to get in the way of the plot.

Good characters, good plot, the good wins over evil in the end.

A good read.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

A great novel and a fun read written by someone who has been there. And Gambit is even better.

One of my favorite mystery writers, John Lescroart, said this book "hits all the notes," but it's hard to believe he liked it, given how poorly written it is, and how good a writer he is. I picked the book up because of all the writers who praised it, and because the story seemed interesting, but it's written at about a freshman level (whether high school or college is a toss-up). I gave up about thirty pages into it...couldn't take the vapid prose and zero characterization any more. I give this author a "V" for "vapid"! (That's also what I call the guy many call "W", and for similar reasons.)