Rules of Deception by Christopher Reich
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Book Reviews of Rules of Deception
Book Review: RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "AN INTERNATIONAL THRILLER THAT COMBINES ALL OF TODAY'S HEADLINES AND FEARS!"
Summary: 5 Stars
"A guard patrolling the custodial road caught the flash of yellow lying in the dirt. He approached cautiously... it was not like any butterfly he had seen before. First of all, it was larger. Its wings were rigid, with jagged bits of a paper-thin metal protruding from the silken skin. The fuzzy thorax was split in two and connected by a green wire. Mystified, he picked it up and examined it. Like all those who worked at the facility, he was first and foremost an engineer, and only reluctantly a soldier. What he saw left him shaken. Inside the thorax was an aluminum-cased battery no bigger than a grain of rice, and attached to it, a microwave transmitter. Using his thumbnail, he sheared away the antennae's skin to reveal a cluster of fiber-optic cables, thin as human hair."
"His hand shook as he radioed his superiors." "THEY HAVE FOUND US."
*** And so this pot-boiling international cauldron of intrigue begins! ***
What I am about to describe to you at a velocity faster than "ELECTRIFIED-HUMAN-TWITCH-MUSCLE-SPEED" will "NOT" give away any of the myriad of climactic-multi-level mysteries and conundrum's awaiting the potential reader's of this fast-paced and intelligent thriller.
Dr. Jonathan Ransom, a surgeon for Doctors Without Borders, is hiking on a treacherous mountain with his wife Emma, an administrative nurse in the same organization, as a storm starts to approach. Emma falls into an unseen crevasse and dies. One day later, before Jonathan's true mourning can even begin... events quickly unfold that makes Jonathan wonder if he really even knew who his wife was. From unclaimed packages... to missing explosives... to CIA agents capturing terrorists and transporting them illegally throw Swiss airspace... to a professional deranged assassin known as the "Ghost"... to double agents being murdered... to dirty cops... to terrorist suspects flown by America to the Middle East to be boiled in TWO-HUNDRED-DEGREE-WATER in a vat, till their skin comes off, in order to save hundreds if not thousands of innocent lives... and what questions of ethics would arise if the International Atomic Energy Agency knew that Iran had FIFTY-THOUSAND-centrifuges instead of FIVE-HUNDRED... if Iran had radioactive mineral's enriched to NINETY-SIX-PERCENT instead of THIRTY-PERCENT... and what if they had enough enriched uranium-235 to make FOUR AND MAYBE FIVE ATOMIC BOMBS?
The action never stops as the plots and schemes involve law enforcement from around the globe. There are as many fake passports in this novel as there are fake breasts in Hollywood. Although the reader is transported from country to country, a predominance of time is spent in Switzerland, where death is in the air, despite the fact that Switzerland as a country, recorded a total of sixty-seven homicides the previous year. Less than the American city of San Diego, which had one-seventh the population of Switzerland."
Anyone who says this book doesn't keep you on the edge of your seat... has lost their mind... as well as their seat! Oh yea... we also have "POISON DART FROGS!"
Book Review: A Thriller that Deserves to Be Called a Thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
The story opens with a grabber: Emma Ransom, while skiing with her husband Jonathan, dies in a terrible accident on a Swiss slope, and from there the story tumbles and throbs into a suspenseful spy thriller plot. How often have we seen the amateur, the ordinary guy, caught up in the frightening world of dangerous intrigue and being hunted simultaneously Hitchcockian-style by the cops and evildoers? There's plenty of conniving, conspiring, double dealing, and betraying. Rogue elements within the U.S. government are up to no good.
It's a good thing that Jonathan Ransom is a medical doctor because he has to endure and treat his numerous wounds as he pursues the bad guys.
The Ghost is a CIA trained hit man who dips his bullets in a Central American frog poison. The bad guys are involved in a scheme that involves preemptive and proactive attacks, and Dr. Ransom has to stop them.
You learn a lot as you read the book because the author has done careful research and is knowledgeable in various fields although there is some technical gibberish to add authenticity and believability.
The narration rushes at a breakneck pace, but because the book consists of alternating chapters (episodes) dealing with different sets of characters, some of the book's narrative velocity and urgency is lost, and the reader tends to read it in short spurts rather than at long sittings.
The often used device: the common man thought guilty by the cops becomes like a super hero doing deeds of derring-do beyond the ken of most mortals. He gets away in the knick of time on a number of occasions.
It's a well-written, richly layered, multi-textured book with different plot strands following various characters. In this genre don't expect too much plausibility. The ending is exciting and involves some rewriting of history.
Book Review: You'll want to read Rules.....
Summary: 5 Stars
Christopher Reich's Rules of Deception is a stupendous read with one twist after another. Rules of Deception contains more suspense that the old movie serials of decades past and
delivers a great story to boot.
Without giving too much a way the protagonist Jonathan Ransom, one of those really nice guys who also happens to be a surgeon working with Doctors Without Borders is pursuing his passion of mountain climbing is the Alps with his wife, Emma. Mountain climbing has tons of risks and with this trip the odds are against Ransom; an avalanche sweeps Emma to her death. Badly shaken Ransom returns to his hotel only to find an envelope delivery awaiting his now dead wife with two claims tickets inside. Using these tickets he finds her secret luggage and the contents reveal that there was a lot more to Emma than he knew. What mayhem follows.
Don't judge this book until you've finished it. Reich provides us with a story that builds as it goes and in the end you'll be glad you stuck with the book. Jonathan eventually reveals himself to be quite the adventurer and engages in wild chases and the use of disguises as he eludes the international manhunt for him.
With characters like Emma's best friend Simone Noiret and Marcus von Daniken, head of the Swiss counterterrorism organization, the story is colorful and engaging. Reich, in the manner of Tom Clancy, is at ease with the incorporation of high tech gadgets into his story and this adds a lot to the suspense.
This is my first Christopher Reich's book but it won't be my last.
I highly recommend Rules of Deception.
Book Review: Stunning Thriller, Full of Suspense and Intrigue
Summary: 5 Stars
Rules of Deception kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the entire book! I could hardly bring myself to set it down. It is a masterful thriller, full of suspense and intrigue.
Jonathan Ransom is a physician with Doctors without Borders. He is married to Emma who also works for the organization. They met eight years ago and up until this time, they've traveled throughout war-torn regions in northern Africa and the Middle East, tending to those injured by the conflict.
While enjoying holiday in Switzerland, Emma is killed in a freak ski accident, leaving Jonathan to pick of the pieces of her life. Things start to unravel almost immediately when Emma receives two baggage claim tickets, the day after her death. Curious, Jonathan teams up with Emma's best friend, Simone, who arrives on the scene shortly after her death, and together , they go to fetch the items from the depot. A melee occurs and two policemen end up dead. Suddenly, nobody is who they seem.
Jonathan discovers that Emma had a secret life, one where much is at stake in terms of world peace. He finds himself on the run as he tries to protect himself, and get to the bottom of a horrible plot designed to incite war. As the bodies start to pile up, will Jonathan solve this mystery before it is too late?
I would highly recommend Rules of Deception to anyone who enjoys a good, historical, politically-charged thriller! Check out his other titles as well. Numbered Account is one of my favorites!
Book Review: Rules of Deception
Summary: 5 Stars
In this first book of a new series, you will find everything a great thriller needs, international intrigue, travel, romance, murder and mayhem. Yet through it all our main character attempts to keep his head above the murky waters of intrigue and false accusations that surround him. Even though at many points in this book, he will feel like he is going down for the third time, Dr. Jonathan Ransom keeps on believing in the goodness of his wife, a woman he has come to find out is a spy but for which country he doesn't know. All he knows is that he loves her and wants to prove her innocence while at the same time trying to prove his own innocence and keep a maniac from bringing down an Israeli airplane over Switzerland.
This book will make you feel out of breath yourself with its non-stop action. You almost plead with the author to give the characters a break and a chance to rest so that you the reader can rest also. Unfortunately, in our fast paced society, time waits for no man and apparently even more so with those who threaten our very lives and society.
I very much enjoyed this book and also its sequel Rules of Vengeance which picks up 6 months after this book ends and also takes you on the same roller coaster ride of suspense and action. If Emma Ransom intrigued you in this book, you will get to know her even more in this next book. You can't read one book without the other.