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Over fifty years ago, a Russian strategic bomber crash-landed on a Canadian Arctic island, carrying weaponized anthrax—enough to cause wide-spread death in the United States. And they almost made it to the American border. But the crew was never heard from again, and the plane remained undiscovered—until a scientific team stumbles across it while ice-climbing.
Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith joins his Russian liaison, Major Gregori Smyslov, along with two other American specialists—CIA operative Randi Russell and professor of history and weapons expert Valentina Metrace. The joint Russian-American investigation team is sent in to determine if any active biological warfare agents remain aboard the plane and to ascertain the fate of the crew flying it.
The Covert-One team faces the frigid barren land of the Canadian Arctic, a vicious arms dealer and his crew of mercenaries, and a hidden Russian agenda. To prevent a diplomatic and political conflagration, the Russians hold a secret about the downed plane, and they have no qualms about leaving no one alive to uncover it.
All the characters in The Arctic Event are fascinating, but my favorite is Major Gregori Smyslov. Caught between duty and honor, he struggles with the mission and the orders that have been handed down to him. The Americans have become his comrades, and he very much wants them as allies. But if he doesn’t carry out his orders—orders he doesn’t necessarily agree with—the cautious peace, since the Cold War ended, between Russia and the United States could be strained to the breaking point once again.
I’ve come to love military thrillers, probably because my boyfriend is one of those guys who can do what the characters do in covert operations—he’s a Special Forces soldier who is home safe now, thank goodness! At first, I read them to understand what he does, but now I read them because they’re packed full of hold-your-breath, kick-ass action, intrigue, and military tactics that baffle the mind. James Cobb has certainly given us all that and more in The Arctic Event.
Though it takes several short chapters to get the story started, don’t give up on it! Once it gets going, it turns into hold-onto-your-butt suspense. Mr. Cobb throws every kind of obstacle imaginable at his characters, until your nerves are screaming for something to go right, and you’re actually praying the characters will make it out alive.
If The Artic Event is any indication of Mr. Cobb’s astounding talent, his backlog of novels will be on my bookshelf in the near future.
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