Independence Day: A Dewey Andreas Novel (A Dewey Andreas Novel, 5)

Excellent.

This is the fifth book in a series of books that, so far, contains eight books. Read them in chronological order, as the books build upon the prior story lines.

In this novel, a young Russian computer genius has cracked CIA's protection software, and has had free access to all of CIA's data networks. In addition he has acquired an old 1950's era atomic weapon and has plans to take revenge on the USA for the murder of his father and mother. Dewey, is thrust into the middle of this struggle. The plot has enough twists and turns and interesting characters to keep the reader involved.

The books in this series are "fun reading" and not fine literature by any stretch of anybody's imagination. One must suspend all thoughts based in reality as to the amount of punishment the human body can sustain and still function - but, what else would you expect of someone who is just molecule short of being a "Super-hero".

I am now convinced that the author does not know the difference between the words "bring" and "take". There are at least three instances where he uses "bring" when he should have used "take” (pages 5, 274, and 333 in the paperback edition). To explain - "bring” is used when the item being moved is coming to the location of the speaker, "take" is used when the intended final location of the item is elsewhere. This type of error should, in my opinion, be caught in proof reading. This is not a new complaint of mine with this author - see my other reviews of books in this series.

The author has one of the characters in the book use "Channel 16" to place a "Mayday" call, requesting a replacement fuel pump. First off an ocean going vessel such as "Lonely Fisherman" would not be using short range VHF (maximum range 60 miles) for such a transmission, and secondly, the correct transmission would have been "Pan-Pan" not "Mayday for such a call about needing a fuel pump. Since 2007, EPIRBs have been the only legally accepted distress signaling. And the US Coast Guard, along with most of the rest of the world, stopped monitoring anything except EPIRBs on February 1, 2009. This switch away from the old 500 Hz Morse Code channel was part of the changes in the SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) regulations - which also discontinued having a full time radio operator monitoring the distress channel. One can debate the changes, but cost efficiency won out over, in my opinion, safety. But, that is a subject for another conversation - but, as far as this book goes - the author should have done a little more research before making this a key turning point in the plot.

At least in this novel the author has stopped trying to describe many different types of handgun, and getting many of the facts wrong, as in the prior novels in this series.

An enjoyable book - just accept it for what it is - fun escapism.

Do you like fast action? Do you like lots and lots of shooting, hitting, stabbing and blood? Do you want a story that moves fast fast fast? Well, here it is. Ben Coes can and does deliver fast, hard hitting action. He also brings in a plot that has a lot of moving parts. I like all of that as do his readers.
We do not get to know our characters as well as many other thriller writers introduce their characters. If that is not a deal killer for you, enjoy the action. Coes has a lot of interesting characters with developed back stories. But we never feel comfortable with them, we never feel that we know them and that is a key for good writing. I am not saying that this is a bad book, not at all. It just isn't better than the average for the genre.

It was another good novel by Ben Coes. Not as good as the first two. Hoping 4th book returns to the level of the 1st novel in this series.

A formidable anti hero with plenty of fast paced action & well written plot.

Special ops fiction added to my collection.

Good read

Andreas continues to take out the bad guys

Good read

Suspenseful and interesting