Rules of Engagement

The authors themselves acknowledge that thier writing style is reminiscent of early Tom Clancy work, and I couldn't agree more. The action flows smoothly and the characters are believable. The villain is very dangerous but is human enough to make mistakes. The midshipmen are probably being groomed for follow on stories which is perfectly fine. They deserve more time in print. The techno jargon is explained just enough to be believable but to so to lose the reader. Well worth the read!

This book reminded me of a classic Tom Clancy thriller. I could not put the book down. It is a mesmerizing tale. Looking for more from Bruns and Olson.

This is excellent -- Fast paced, interesting and creative plot, plus well written characters (including important female characters, which is still pretty unusual in this kind of novel). This is a very talented writing duo, and I look forward to more! Recommended.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!

The most wanted man in the world isn’t a religious zealot or a some 3rd world megalomaniac. He’s a man driven by revenge. To avenge the loss of his wife that forced him underground and his children to live in exile. Rafiq Roshed.

He has trained himself to see and execute small and extensive cyber-attacks on the people responsible. That would be the west in general and the USA in particular. But he can’t do this on his own. He needs a sponsor. Pak Myung-rok is Kim Jong-un’s go-to guy when the Supreme Leader wants something done that can’t be traced back.

Roshed’s latest attack was directed at the power hubs up and down the East Coast. 36 million people were affected. Effective, but it wasn’t crippling. The leash on Pak has some flexibility and some representatives of the various Russian mobs have asked Pak to help them with some business. A lack of sustained hostilities in the far east means that the sale of weapons has dropped off considerably. In their infinite wisdom, the mob figures that a little nudge might touch off a raised level of suspicion between China and Japan.

The plan developed by Roshed involves a deep hack into the Chinese and Japanese military networks. A hack so deep that Roshed can in near complete charge of the command and control for each country. And the hack is a learning system. Touch one part of the code and another activates that tells other routines to turn on or shut off.

A higher up in US cyber security is Don Riley. When times are quasi-quiet, he teaches a seminar at Annapolis. Mostly for upper classmen, he has managed to get permission for a talented plebe (freshman) to enroll. Three students have demonstrated exceptional skills. Midshipman 2nd class (college Jr.) Andrea Ramirez is about the fastest coder he’s ever seen. Don Goodwin, the plebe, has an extraordinary ability to see patterns in code. Sort of like seeing a couple jigsaw puzzles mixed and spread out and be able to assemble both in seconds. And Midshipman 1st class (college Sr.) Janet Everett takes what Goodwin sees and Ramirez codes and from her 10,000 ft view, sees what, when, and where outcomes should happen. The leader of the pack of students.

Riley’s no fool. He persuades his bosses to get this trio read in on progressively higher and higher levels of security that goes along with increasingly intensive levels of responsibility and danger.

Roshed tunnels his way into the Chinese and Japanese networks. His own team rivals Riley’s team. But Roshed has gone one step further. A step expressly forbidden by the Supreme Leader. He’s also hacked into the increasingly complex US system. And it’s here that Roshed’s plans could potentially lead to WWIII.

Flyovers that skirt sovereign airspace. Ships that may or may not be in territorial waters. Responses that used to be just a supersonic fly-by are now ordered to fire. Planes are downed. Ships get sunk. Submarines are being ordered to attack a US carrier. Crap is getting out of hand.

To stay out of WWIII, the hack of the US system has to be halted, be it killed or just distracted. Not to mention that the source of these actions have to be tracked down. Coders and hackers on both sides become unwilling participants in a shooting war.

Early reviews of this book say it pays homage to early Tom Clancy techno-thrillers. Hard to argue with that. Clancy’s early books jumped up and down the chain of command on both sides of any conflict in glamorous and shithole locations around the world. That formula worked for Clancy and boy does it works for Bruns/Olson.

It's a bit of serendipity that I read this right after reading Sting of the Wasp. Both have the same theme: a chase to find a most wanted terrorist with one main difference. Wasp followed a small team with a mostly silent back-up team and this book involves an all hands on deck hunt by the US military cyber force.

The authors are USNA grads and the requisite post-Annapolis naval careers. Always great when insider experiences are the foundation of a book’s details. They always say, ‘write about what you know’ and that is on full display. Now I’ve never been a fan of co-authored novels because the final product almost seems like a watered down compromise of writing styles. Not here. This collaboration is seamless. Bruns and Olson have done a few self-financed and self-published books so they’ve cut their teeth admirably in this co-author business. This is the first of a two-book deal with St. Martin’s Press. If you’ve missed the authenticity of Clancy’s techno-thriller genre and continue to look for similar books, look no more. You won’t be disappointed.

Available June 25, 2019