From the acclaimed author of Top Hook and Hostile Contact, the fifth exhilarating tale of modern espionage and military adventure featuring US Navy intelligence officer Alan Craik -- sure to appeal to the many fans of Tom Clancy and Dale Brown. Alan Craik and his US Navy battlegroup confront two new enemies: international, organized crime and a massive storm at sea. Alan is back on the aircraft carrier USS Thomas Jefferson, using the latest radar technology to monitor smuggling craft in the Indian Ocean between Pakistan and Somalia. As a break he is sent ashore to assess the port of Mombasa for a forthcoming liberty visit. While the battlegroup remains at sea because of a brewing storm, he arrives in Mombasa safely. But he is hardly on the beach when a US Navy support ship is blown up at the dockside. Chaos ensues, and further acts of violence. Soon -- cut off from support by the storm at sea -- Alan is charged with the task of tracking down the faceless people behind these apparently motiveless terrorist attacks.
Gordon Kent was (is, I suppose) two people, my son - Christian Cameron, author of TYRANT and WASHINGTON AND CASEAR and other books - and me. The reason for the pseudonym was the obvious one that two names on a cover were not thought as good as one. And of course the one needed to be anglo and male; my suggestion of Max Cohen got nowhere, as did several dozen others we trotted by the publisher. Eventually, we settled on Gordon Kent: Gordon was my father's name, my son's middle name; Kent, oh, well.
We wrote eight novels - the Alan Craik books - under this pseudonym, starting with NIGHT TRAP (RULES OF ENGAGEMENT in the US, probably one of the most overworked titles there is) and ending with the much darker (and more satisfying) SPOILS OF WAR and THE FALCONER'S TALE. The books were about the air side of the US Navy, mostly about intelligence, but with a lot of derring-do that real intel officers never get to play at. They were usually fun to write because we'd both been in the navy, my son a good deal longer than I; we had our differences, as any two people must, but it was a surprisingly workable relationship. Lots of long-distance telephone calls, occasional meetings to go fishing and use the time in the car to plan books. We worked from outlines made on those trips, then divided the scenes up - we quickly learned who did which sorts of scenes and which characters better - and then we wrote and exchanged files and bickered and praised and wound up with a book.
Is Gordon Kent finished? We wonder. We're both writing our own books now under our own names, but occasionally we feel a nudge to go back to that partnership. Maybe, maybe....
