The Arctic Event: A Good Choice!

Book Review: The Arctic Event by Robert Ludlum
Version: Library ebook borrow

I have a new Kindle Fire 7 to access cloudLibrary from my local library, and to test out this new ebook resource, I chose The Arctic Event. It's the seventh book of the Covert-One series by Robert Ludlum (best known for the Jason Bourne series) released in 2008. It was a good choice!

The 2008 world of The Arctic Event is much different than our world today. In it, the United States and the Russian Federation are cooperative. Russia is still reeling from the effects of its Soviet past and hasn't yet begun to try to influence elections in the U.S. and Europe. In this story, an old Soviet aircraft accidentally downed unnoticed in the remote Arctic during the Cold War is discovered by a Western scientific expedition, and a U.S. team of covert military assets, accompanied by a cooperating military officer from the Russian Federation, travel to the far northern Canadian frontier to investigate. Details slowly emerge that the downed aircraft was on a secret mission carrying a tank of anthrax to disperse over North America, and the question is, when the crew knew they were about to crash did they ditch the tank of anthrax or is it still on the plane? On the way to the crash site, the team's helicopter is attacked from the air, and as they finally make landfall and seek out the crash site by foot, they find the science lab has been attacked and now the team is under attack by hostile forces. Meanwhile, the Americans aren't sure they can trust the military officer from Russia. Someone else wants the tank of anthrax and suddenly the Russians don't want the world to know the truth about the mission of the downed airplane. It's up to the American team to thwart the enemies, whoever they are.

Ludlum is a great writer and his stories rarely fail to satisfy. In this instance, The Arctic Event is a well-crafted spy thriller with well-rounded characters and a nicely plotted story line. His descriptions are keenly written, as well, giving you a vivid scene of the setting and the action and making the story play out before your eyes. I wouldn't say you will be riveted to your seat, but you will be captured by the drama and the events and you will want to get to the end to find out how everything plays out.

Don't let this being a 2008 release or the almost quaint historical perspective of positive U.S.-Russia relations put you off. It's still a good story. And if you are put off by long waits at the library for a current Robert Ludlum book, I would think a 2008 book wouldn't have that problem.

So, do consider reading The Arctic Event. As a Robert Ludlum book it's a good read!