Larry Bond's Red Dragon Rising: Shock of War - Hardcover

Bond, Larry; DeFelice, Jim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765321394 ISBN 13: 9780765321398

Publisher: Forge Books, 2012

Synopsis

Under secret orders from the President, U.S. Army Major Zeus Murphy sabotages a Chinese invasion fleet on the eve of its assault against Vietnam. But after Murphy and fellow officer Win Christian are trapped behind enemy lines, Christian's erratic behavior gives them away. The pair shoot their way out of a Chinese airport terminal, hijack a bus, then barely escape two truckloads of soldiers before disappearing into the night. Thus starts Zeus Murphy's personal odyssey in the latest installment of the Red Dragon Rising series.

Back in America, President Chester Greene fails to convince Congress that the Chinese invasion of Vietnam is the first step in a plan to rule Asia―and eventually go to war with the U.S. Not even the Pentagon will support the President; top-ranking officers do everything they can to sabotage his orders.

After Zeus and Christian dodge a Chinese armored division and return to Vietnam, Zeus proposes a plan to blunt the tank attack. His commanding officer orders him to stand down. Zeus disobeys in an effort to help the Vietnamese woman he's fallen in love with. Win Christian goes with him to prove he's not a coward…within hours, both men are alone with a company of Vietnamese soldiers on the border, staring down the barrels of Chinese main battle tanks as they drive on Haiphong, starting a countdown to all-out war with the West.

In Larry Bond's Red Dragon Rising: Shock of War, New York Times bestselling authors Larry Bond and Jim DeFelice imagine a horrifying near-future immersed in global war.

About this title

About the Author

LARRY BOND is the author of numerous New York Times bestselling thrillers, including Cold Choices, Vortex, Cauldron, and The Enemy Within. He previously worked with Jim DeFelice on the Larry Bond's First Team series. A former Naval Intelligence officer, warfare analyst and anti-submarine technology expert, he makes his home in Springfield, Virginia.

JIM DeFELICE is the author of many military thrillers and is a frequent collaborator with Stephen Coonts, Larry Bond, and Richard Marcinko, among other New York Times bestselling authors. His solo novels include Leopards Kill, Threat Level Black, Coyote Bird, War Breaker, and My Brother's Keeper. He lives in New York.

Reviews

The third novel in Bond and DeFelice’s Red Dragon Rising series suffers from middle-book syndrome. Josh MacArthur testifies to the UN about the horrible events he witnessed after China invaded Vietnam. The president of the U.S. wants Congress to act, but not enough legislators believe that China is a real threat to America. Meanwhile, working on secret orders, two American soldiers, Zeus Murphy and Win Christian, find themselves trapped behind Chinese lines. The narrative jumps between on-the-ground action as Murphy and Christian try to shoot their way out of China and the political build-up to World War III. The pages fly by at a furious pace, but the story ends abruptly, almost like a television serial. This one will definitely appeal to military fiction aficionados, though really only those familiar with the series, since the majority of the novel is incomprehensible without knowledge of the two books that precede it. --Jeff Ayers

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Larry Bond's Red Dragon Rising: Shock of War

By Larry Bond

Forge Books

Copyright © 2012 Larry Bond
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780765321398

1
 

Beijing

Premier Cho Lai watched the American on the video screen dispassionately, willing himself to study the man and what he said with the mind of a scientist and observer. The American’s message was one of venom, directed at Cho and his people, the Chinese country, and especially the Chinese army. It made Cho boil with anger and lust for vengeance. He wanted with all his heart to punch his hand through the video screen, to smash it—or better, to punch through the screen and somehow take this Josh MacArthur by his skinny, blotchy neck and strangle him. Cho could almost feel the boy’s thorax collapsing beneath his hands.
Boy.
That was what he was. Not a scientist, not a man—a boy. A rodent. Scum.
No one would take him seriously if not for the images he’d brought back. They flashed on the screen as the scum’s voice continued to speak. The Chinese translation played across the bottom of the screen, but Cho had no need for it; he spoke English reasonably well, and in any event the images themselves told the story.
All of his careful planning to make the invasion look as if the Vietnamese had instigated the war was threatened by this scum. It mattered nothing to Vietnam—Vietnam would be crushed no matter what the world thought. China needed its rice and oil, and it would have it.
But this threatened the next step. For Cho knew that his country’s appetite was insatiable. The people who thronged the streets of Beijing not far from his compound were desperately short of food. Keeping them satisfied was an impossible task.
Impossible for anyone but him. The last two governments had toppled in rapid succession, each lasting less then two short months thanks to food riots and dissension. Cho had used the unrest to maneuver himself to power, promising to end the disturbances. He would remain in power only as long as he could keep that promise. It was not that he had any enemies—the most prominent had met unfortunate accidents over the past few months, or else been exposed in corruption trials, or, in a few cases, bought off with timely appointments outside the country. But as his own rise had shown, it was not the prominent one who had to fear in the chaos of the moment; it was the obscure. Cho had risen from a job as lieutenant governor for agriculture in the parched western provinces. Two years before, no one in Beijing would even have known his name. Now they bowed to him.
As the world would.
But first, this danger must be dealt with. America, the world, must not be brought into the conflict. The giant must not be wakened, until it was too late for it to stop the inevitable momentum of Chinese conquest.
Cho snapped off the video. He had seen enough.

 
Copyright © 2011 by Larry Bond and Jim DeFelice

Continues...

Excerpted from Larry Bond's Red Dragon Rising: Shock of War by Larry Bond Copyright © 2012 by Larry Bond. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Forge Books
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0765321394
• ISBN 13: 9780765321398
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352