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The Zero Option by David Rollins | ||||
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From the Dustjacket
The Cold War is going badly for President Reagan's administration. Support in Europe for the Soviet Union is on the rise while acceptance of the new US intermediate-range nuclear missiles is waning. Enter Roy Garret, a bright young NSA analyst with a plan. That plan goes into effect on September 1, 1983 when Korean Air Lines flight 007 takes off from Anchorage, Alaska, heading for Seoul. On board: 269 civilians including one US Congressman with too many secrets. The airliner rendezvous with a US spy plane over the Bearing Sea, then overflies a top secret Soviet submarine base and is finally shot down off Sakhalin Island. Or is it? No wreckage or bodies are recovered. And a radar tape showing what really happened to KAL 007 has disappeared. Thirty years later, the missing radar tape falls into the hands of the daughter of a KAL 007 passenger and the son of the US spy plane commander. Determined to keep the facts hidden after all this time is New Mexico Governor Roy Garret, who is now contesting the US presidency. What follows is a desperate chase across the Siberian snows to uncover the facts. Can two young idealists outwit the forces ranged against them, or will Uncle Sam and the Russian Bear bury the truth oce and for all? |
Publisher : Pan Macmillan Australia
First published : 2009
ISBN : 9781408039178
No. Pages : 509 pages
Used copies of The Zero Option are available for sale at (click for list of available books)
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Review
For those who were looking out for the next Vin Cooper book, this
is not it, it's a stand alone novel but don't be alarmed because it's a
powerful thriller indeed.
The story switches between
1983 and 2012 as we get a story of action and consequence that plays out
after 30 years of lies and deception. There is
a terrible plan born in the Cold War days, hatched by NSA agent Roy
Garret in which a commercial jet filled with innocent people would be
"accidentally" flown into Soviet air space. The Soviets, if they were
true to their threats would shoot the plane out of the sky, thus
revealing themselves to the rest of the world as the true evil who must
be stopped by the US. The plan is put in place in a bid to improve
President Reagan's flagging popularity. Something
this large requires a lot of things to go right for the truth to remain
a secret and inevitably there is a leak of information that is allowed
to get by all of the work done by the NSA heavies. That leak comes in
the form of an old American Air Force pilot Curtis Foxx and a Japanese
radar operator Yuudai Suzuki. However it is only after their deaths in
2012 that they set in motion a series of events that threaten to uncover
the terrible truth. It comes down to Ben
Harbor and Akiko Sato, two youngsters who don't really understand what
they're getting themselves into leading a chase through some of the most
inhospitable territory. Their pursuers? Well they will want them dead
to keep a 30 year old secret. The Zero Option by David Rollins is an action packed thriller that is your classic tale of the innocent small guy being chased by a formidible big-guy bully. There should only be one winner. | |||||
