Into the Fire

Don Brown, former Lieutenant Commander Don Brown, JAG Corps, operates his private law practice in North Carolina and writes novels about the US Navy. His latest release, The Malacca Conspiracy, leads off this week’s CFBA Tour. Attention!

If you’ve never read a Don Brown novel, you could start with The Malacca Conspiracy, but if you really want to get involved in this author’s frame of mind or point of view, you’d be robbing yourself of some dynamite reading if you don’t start with Treason, move on to Hostage, and conclude the trilogy with Defiance. Then, because you no doubt will have added Don’s work to your must read list, throw in Black Sea Affair before you read The Malacca Conspiracy where you’ll be reunited with Lieutenant Commanders Zack Brewer and Diane Colcernian. You won’t be sorry either way.

The Malacca Conspiracy constitutes a complex plan to disable the United States of America with specific targeted nuclear attacks organized by the top Indonesian General Suparman Perkasa who plans to reign as the Islamic leader of his Muslim nation. In order to set the plan in motion several things must happen, and when certain oil buys take place in the middle of the night, the connection to terror attacks in the critical shipping lanes of the Straits of Malacca brings major cause for alarm at the White House.

Don Brown has never shied away from establishing who today’s world terrorists are. Politically correct is not in his vocabulary and thank God for that. Like Vince Flynn, Don writes unafraid and portrays fanaticism at its most zealous extremes.

For those of us who’ve waited for Zack and Diane to resurface, they finally meet in what they hope will be a positive reunion, but almost immediately they find themselves separated once again by horrific events. And it gets worse. Plenty of action occurs as we watch The Malacca Conspiracy begin to take shape. An obscure character holds the keys to intervention but is terrified and confused as to how or if to do it.

With plenty of tension and bouncing around the globe, the hours tick-tock away under a madman’s threats while the president scrambles for answers and swift responses from his amazing military forces. A truly patriotic story with solid action and real Christianity in operation at the highest levels, The Malacca Conspiracy presents a viable possibility with chilling precision resulting in a meaningful and touching ending for Don Brown fans.

One might wonder at a particular choice and the results of a member of the conspiracy in a final act of martyrdom because of the survival of key people in the story. As a reader, I’m relieved at the results, but it might seem like an unlikely or gimmicky end to the intention of the perpetrator.

Some of the set-up to this complicated plot takes time, but if the reader is willing to wait a bit on the real action, it explodes in a flash bang. Words come crisp as a snapped salute in the height of tense moments and compel the reader to hurry through the pages. Pure military fiction with just enough swagger and romance to draw in a variety of readers.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310272157

Father, I continue to pray for Don to be unflinching in his stories. I ask for your continued blessing upon his life, his work, his writing, and in everything that is precious to him. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.