Title: Dangerous Journey
Subtitle: Book One
Author: Clark Selby
Publisher: BookVenture Publishing
ISBN: 978-1641661959
Pages: 144
Genre: Fiction / Action Adventure
Reviewed by: Jake Bishop
Hollywood Book Reviews
The novels of Alistair MacLean come to mind when considering this effort in international intrigue from Clark Selby. Dangerous Journey is a high-octane foray into the world of international terrorism. It has American law enforcement agencies working in consort with their intelligence counterparts to try and stop multiple nuclear devices from being detonated in locations across the United States.
Set in the present, it all starts with a sports car loving scientist who wants to drive his primo 1958 Chevrolet Corvette in the Moscow to Beijing auto race. He talks his friend and co-working scientist into taking time off to join him in the competition. Before you know it, more of their friends have agreed to accompany them and Chevrolet has even agreed to send a contingent along to film a documentary of the classic car in action. On the ship carrying the Corvette and its aforementioned crew across the ocean, the vessel is overrun by pirates, the passengers are taken hostage, and the seagoing carrier is scuttled.
It turns out that the pirates are actually under the command of one of the world’s most wanted al-Qaeda terrorists. He leads a motley crew of religious zealots, foot soldiers, and even Russian KGB agents. They’ve kidnapped the two scientists and their friends in order to force the scientists into constructing suitcase nuclear bombs to be used against American targets. The ruffians have threatened to kill the scientists’ friends (in particularly brutal ways) unless the nuclear–knowledgeable scientists comply. Will the two do their bidding? Will their friends and they themselves be killed anyway once their tasks have been completed? Will anyone find out about their plight and reach them in time?
Selby’s plot is cleverly constructed. The scientists must weigh the lives of people they know against countless lives of people they’ve never met. The author not only mines this moral dilemma well, he also adds involving layers by introducing a force, unknown to the captives, that is on its way to rescue them.
Selby’s character development is engaging too. The potential rescuing force includes an CIA analyst who is great at turning wildly disparate information into concrete plans he can see long before his cohorts do. Another memorable member of the force is its leader, a retired military man from the Viet Nam era now calling the shots in CIA covert operations. He hasn’t lost his zeal for action, but the loss of the girl he loved (who turned to another) when he was in the Southeast Asian war has soured him on relationships with the opposite sex. Fortunately, you can’t say as much for one of the aforementioned nuclear scientists who manages to find love, both emotional and physical, with a comely Irish lass caught up in the hostages’ predicament.
Selby’s involving story will definitely keep you turning pages to find out what’s going to happen next. Speed of page turning is somewhat slowed however by a number of editing lapses that put up speed bumps along the way. Still, his is a fast-paced adventure full of suspense, mayhem, and uncommon heroics. There are even a couple of surprises left for the climax that very few readers will see coming. If you’re into adventure, you most certainly would want to take this Dangerous Journey.