AppId is over the quota
Suspenseful story that sure kept my nose to the grindstone, not wanting to put this book down and go to sleep! Relations between The United States and China have not been good for years and Jim Kenfield writes a very plausible story about big trouble between the two nations when China launches an attempt to send rail containerized nuclear weapons to all the strategic areas across the United States. These weapons were supposed to go easily and freely to any place that had strong secrecy in or near the locations. This would have gone well for the Chinese except that in Tacoma, Washington one of the containers happened to have an accident. The local authorities and the FBI were called in to check this damage since it was an international shipment. They "accidentally" broke the seal on the container and discovered some strange contents. This container was so much lighter in weight than almost all other containers so they began checking other containers in this shipment and sure enough, there were many more the same way.
Thus the Chinese terrorism attack was thwarted and awoke the United States as to what China was capable of. All the containers were tracked and all but one was found. The lost one disappeared when a train was derailed in Louisiana and the container fell into the river and even though many hours of searching was done, it was never found due to some crazy kids that made it disappear after thinking they had found a fortune. This started meetings between the United States and Chinese governments. The Chinese, of course, denied any participation of a nuclear attack on the United States but the proof was there. The Chinese blamed it on a certain group of military that planned and carried out this mission without their governments support. The suspicion of this being a false explanation was difficult to track since somehow, an airplane with all of those involved in the Chinese version of this plot crashed and all aboard were killed.
The United States sent a team to China to investigate all areas of this situation they could find. China pledged their support to assist the team. Colonel Jim Hackwood, Hack for short, was chosen to lead the several huge airplanes packed with all types of equipment to aid in the search for any possible clues from the air crash site. Hack had everything possible on those airplanes for the mission including food, showers, mess areas for eating, and much more. On the Chinese side they selected Captain Chu to assist the Americans all he could. Captain Chu could speak English well and seemed very amiable to Huck. The uncertainty of the Americans of how much they were truthfully being told kept them all extremely nervous and anxious, at least at the beginning. Things seemed to go well in the inter-mingling of the various military men but were they telling the Americans the truth?
The combined units of The United States and China worked hard as they delved into the search for clues. Many things thought to be as explained did not make sense but how do they prove that? Huck worked through the American President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Commerce. On the Chinese side, Captain Chu had to work through their counterparts as well. Every move in the negotiations became a delicate possibility that had to go through channels.
This is an excellent book that will make many deeply think out the possibilities in our dangerous world. The action is an every hour occurrence and makes your mind shift along with the characters in the book. Don't miss this one.
Reader review by Cy Hilterman of a book supplied by the author and the publisher
