The Tenth Circle by Jon Land

Book Description

Blaine McCracken races to stop terrorists from unleashing an ancient weapon of unimaginable power at the president’s State of the Union speech

Blaine McCracken pulled off the impossible on a mission in Iran, but his work has just begun. Returning to the US, he faces another terrible threat in the form of Reverend Jeremiah Rule, whose hateful rhetoric has inflamed half the world, resulting in a series of devastating terrorist attacks. But Rule isn’t acting alone. A shadowy cabal is pulling his strings, unaware that they are creating a monster who will soon spin free of their control.

Finding himself a wanted man, McCracken must draw on skills and allies both old and new to get to the heart of a plot aimed at unleashing no less than the tenth circle of hell. A desperate chase takes him into the past, where the answers he needs are hidden amid two of history’s greatest puzzles: the lost colony of Roanoke and the Mary Celeste. As the clock ticks down to an unthinkable maelstrom, McCracken and his trusty sidekick, Johnny Wareagle, must save the United States from a war the country didn’t know it was fighting, and that it may well lose.

About the Author

Since his first book was published in 1983, Jon Land has written twenty-eight novels, seventeen of which have appeared on national bestseller lists. He began writing technothrillers before Tom Clancy put them in vogue, and his strong prose, easy characterization, and commitment to technical accuracy have made him a pillar of the genre.

Land spent his college years at Brown University, where he convinced the faculty to let him attempt writing a thriller as his senior honors thesis. Four years later, his first novel, The Doomsday Spiral, appeared in print. In the last years of the Cold War, he found a place writing chilling portrayals of threats to the United States, and of the men and women who operated undercover and outside the law to maintain U.S. security. His most successful of those novels were the nine starring Blaine McCracken, a rogue CIA agent and former Green Beret with the skills of James Bond but none of the Englishman's tact.

In 1998 Land published the first novel in his Ben and Danielle series, comprised of fast-paced thrillers whose heroes, a Detroit cop and an Israeli detective, work together to protect the Holy Land, falling in love in the process. He has written seven of these so far. The most recent, The Last Prophecy, was released in 2004.

Recently, RT Book Reviews gave Jon a special prize for pioneering genre fiction, and his short story "Killing Time" was shortlisted for the 2010 Dagger Award for best short fiction and included in 2010's The Best American Mystery Stories. Land is currently writing Blood Strong, his fourth novel to feature Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong--a female hero in a genre which, Land has said, has too few of them. The second book in the series, Strong Justice (2010), was named a Top Thriller of the Year by Library Journal and runner-up for Best Novel of the Year by the New England Book Festival. The third, Strong at the Break, will be released this year, and the fourth, Blood Strong, will follow in 2012. His first nonfiction book, Betrayal, written with Robert Fitzpatrick, tells the behind-the-scenes story of a deputy FBI chief attempting to bring down Boston crime lord Whitey Bulger, and will also be released in 2011.
Land currently lives in Providence, not far from his alma mater.

Book Readers Review

This is the first of Jon Land's books I have read but will not be the last one.  The Tenth Circle is number eleven in the Blaine McCracken series.  In this novel McCracken races to stop terrorists from unleashing an ancient weapon of unimaginable power at the president’s State of the Union speech.  Land has achieved a blend of history, mystery, thriller, action, and mythical in his book.  The story is fast paced and definitely needs an active mind to keep up with the events.  At times I found myself having to go back in the story to review a few of the characters.  They were presented at the start and dropped out of sight until near the end.  That was a minor frustration.

Jon Land can hook the reader at once with links between past and present.  These raise questions that can only be answered by continued reading.  I like the shorter chapters and the first half of the book kept me moving forward at good pace.  Then I found my interest wavering a little. The pace slowed and the action stretched out too much.  But I was glad when Land picked up the speed of the events that kept my attention to the end.  I would recommend The Tenth Circle for those who enjoy an action thriller with a twist.  Be warned, the book is long at five hundred or so pages!

I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley.

Book Details and Purchase

Title: The Tenth Circle (Blaine McCracken #11)
Author: Jon Land
Genre: mystery, thriller
Publisher: Open Road Media
Available Formats: paperback, e-book Release date: December 17, 2013
Provided by: Jon Land (c/o)
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