Genre: Thriller
Length: 465 Pages
Publisher: Big City Press
Release date: July 1, 2024
Synopsis:
The Doomsday clock is set at 90 seconds to Midnight. There’s no time to lose. Mike Bond delivers the summer’s must read thriller — our very survival depends on it.
Nuclear war is coming.
Can we stop it?
Or is it already too late?
On an October night, far out in the South China Sea, a diver sets explosive charges under a huge oil platform. On the platform above, geologist Liz Chaplin stands watching the Southern Cross sink beneath the waves.
In New York, Ross Bullock, the CEO of Rawhide Energy and the platform’s owner, states during a televised press conference that our country has made a fatal mistake in Ukraine and is headed for nuclear war.
Immediately the White House, intelligence agencies, the media and financial world attack Rawhide for raising the specter of nuclear war and thus threatening the president’s reelection.
The action expands to Mongolia, Indonesia, Washington D.C., and Ukraine. The true perpetrator of these crimes becomes known – it is impossible, unbelievable, but true. Is the White House behind it?
The president threatens nuclear war with Russia to distract voters from his fraudulent Ukraine and China deals and worsening polls. The Russians respond by increasing their nuclear readiness. But the president alone can decide to launch a nuclear war as he clings to the nuclear button.
So begins CRUDE, Mike Bond’s new super-thriller that takes us to the door of world annihilation and shows us what’s inside.
Review copy provided in exchange for an honest review
Crude was an interesting mystery, following our protagonist, as he works to discover who blew up his oil refinery. I love a good thriller/mystery and for the most part Crude delivered. Mike Bond is an expert in several fields, which lends to his ability to write this political thriller. Crude was heavy on the political side. It was all about the politics of the oil industry and what drives the price either up or down. I honestly don’t know enough to say if what was written is accurate.
Crude also dives into a few other conspiracies, and how they are tied to politics. Political thrillers aren’t my usual fare but the premise was enough to pique my interest. There is a lot going on here and Mike Bond has quite a few characters. At times it was almost too much to keep straight. The story also bounces around quite a bit making it more difficult to read than I liked. All that said, Crude was interesting and the juice was worth the squeeze.
Mike Bond, Biography-
MIKE BOND has been called the “master of the existential thriller” by the BBC and “one of the 21st century’s most exciting authors” by the Washington Times. He is a bestselling novelist, environmental activist, international energy expert, war and human rights correspondent and award-winning poet who has lived and worked in many remote and dangerous parts of the world. His critically acclaimed novels depict the innate hunger of the human heart for what is good, the intense joys of love, the terror and fury of battle, the sinister vagaries of international politics and multinational corporations, and the beauty of the vanishing natural world.
The Scary Reviews 