Gambit [Hardcover]

Karna Small Bodman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 5, 2008

Karna Small Bodman’s first thriller, Checkmate, was praised for its compelling authenticity and page-turning plot. Now Bodman, a former director of the National Security Council, returns with another gripping thriller that reads like tomorrow’s headlines.

American planes are being shot out of the sky, and no one knows how or why. Three commercial jets have gone up in flames. In each crash, nobody reported seeing anything in the sky and nothing showed up on the radar. No planes. No missiles.

Dr. Cameron Talbot, a world-famous expert on missile-defense systems, believes that a new stealth technology is being used in these attacks. With the country in a panic and the economy taking a nosedive, the White House orders the beautiful young scientist to protect America’s endangered airways. The assignment places Cammy in mortal jeopardy as she finds herself stalked by nameless assassins.

Who is behind the threat? Islamic jihadists? The big drug cartels? None of the usual suspects have claimed responsibility for the crashes. As Cammy races against time to develop a defense against the mystery weapon, she comes to suspect that the downed planes are only the opening gambit in an ambitious campaign of conquest that could change the world’s balance of power forever.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bodman, a former Reagan deputy press secretary and NSC senior director, makes little use of her inside knowledge of Washington, D.C., in her second near-future political thriller to feature computer whiz Cameron Cammy Talbot. Scant months after Talbot managed to avert a war between India and Pakistan by deploying a technology she invented in Checkmate (2007), the White House taps her to develop an antimissile device to restore public confidence in plane travel after a series of midair explosions aboard commercial aircraft. Meanwhile, the attractive scientist's former lover, Lt. Col. Hunt Daniels, and the widowed vice president, Jayson Keller, are both pursuing Talbot. The book's romantic scenes bring the action to a screeching halt. The forces behind the air disasters make several amateurish attempts on Cammy's life, but she predictably survives to save the day. Romantic suspense readers will be more rewarded than Tom Clancy fans. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Bodman’s third novel is a mixed bag. Samantha Reid works for Homeland Security, and when several natural-gas pipelines explode under mysterious circumstances, she and her colleagues think terrorism. The vice president of the gas company, Tripp Adams, assists her in trying to decipher who is behind the sabotage. Of course, the two of them went to the same college and longed for each other from afar. The premise is strong and Bodman’s background as a White House staffer provides rich detail, but the reader must dig a bit through too much eye-rollingly stilted dialogue and sappy passages straight out of the worst romance novels. Avoid the mush. --Jeff Ayers --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books; 1st edition (February 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765319284
• ISBN-13: 978-0765319289
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,522,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Karna was on the air for 15 years as a TV news reporter and anchor in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and did political commentary in New York. She also served in the Reagan White House, first as Deputy Press Secretary and later asd Senior Director and Spokesman for the National Security Council. Now she is writing "political thrillers" where she weaves in many of her White House experiences and impressions -- stories of political intrigue, international plots, bureaucratic infighting and, oh yes, romantic entanglements.

Her second novel, GAMBIT, was featured on The Today Show where they said that since these books all focus on current events and very real "national security threats" to our country, instead of calling them "fiction," perhaps we should call them "faction."

Her newest novel, FINAL FINESSE, was the subject of a lengthy interview on the Rush Limbaugh show. Check out Karna's website: www.karnabodman.com -- and you'll see the link -- among other things.

Brand new -- check out her short story (a romantic thriller) "The Agent" - available for download to a Kindle for only 99 cents.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not so thrilling thriller, February 9, 2008

By 

Story Circle Book Reviews - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gambit (Hardcover)

Bodman's second political thriller (Gambit, 2008, following Checkmate, 2007) has some compelling strengths: a frighteningly topical premise, complex plot and subplots, taut intrigue, non-stop tension. U.S. commercial air traffic is under assault by unknown assailants using what missile-defense expert Cameron Talbot believes to be a stealth missile, undetectable by radar. Her assignment: perfect her 360-degree laser defense system so it can be used to protect commercial airliners. With passenger jets shot out of the skies like pigeons, the airline industry in a nosedive, and the stock market in the tank, she'd better hurry. Her top-secret work is complicated by attempts on her life (I counted six) and a love triangle involving the Vice President of the United States and former lover Hunt Daniels.

Bodman draws a convincing, authentically-detailed picture of Washington in chaos as politicians try to control a spiraling catastrophe. Unfortunately, the characters are less convincing, tending toward the stereotypical: the imperiled heroine and her ditzy sidekick; the strong, silent hero; the suavely tricky politicos; the vile villains--foreigners, naturally. And the cute-clever dialogue often reads like something out of a comic book. Disaster novel fans (of whom I am one) will find themselves reading for the plot and premise of this not-so-thrilling thriller and skimming the rest.

Story Circle Book Reviews

reviewing books by, for, and about women

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dr. Talbot to the rescue, February 17, 2008

By 

Fuat C. Baran "The Biblioholic" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gambit (Hardcover)

In this book, a very realistic scenario is portrayed in which terrorists shoot down commercial planes as they take off from U.S. airports. Air travel in the U.S. is crippled, reminiscent of the days immediately after 9/11. Our protagonist the brilliant scientist Dr. Cammy Talbot, who saved the day with her missile defense system in the previous book, this time designs a laser defense system for airplanes. And as last time, her life is in jeopardy as the bad guys try to eliminate her to prevent her from succeeding. The book has lots of details about the White House, political intrigue in Washington, the intelligence and military communities and the high tech defense industry. Author Bodman, having served in the White House for six years and been a senior director of the National Security Council is well qualified to write from experience.

The book was an enjoyable and quick read. I can imagine these books would make good action movies. In fact after a rather dramatic event near the end, one of the characters says, "Took a lot of guts to pull off that E-DIRCM movement, though. Looked like something you'd only see in a movie with special effects."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Could not put it down!, August 3, 2008

By 

Girl Power (Eugene, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gambit (Hardcover)

This spy thriller is hard to put down. It is written with a spare journalistic style and moves you long at a pace that keeps you wanting to read just a little more. The author's background makes her an expert on the workings of Washington, the White House and the National Security community. It makes you look three steps farther at the happenings in our complicated world and its intricate network of alliances and competition.