Red Star Falling by Steve BerryMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I almost wanted to give up on Berry and Blackwood's collaboration with the Luke Daniels series after the first book last year was such a disappointment. But after eventually getting to read this latest book in the series, I have to say it's a serious improvement. Not quite to four star territory, I'm afraid, but still a better Berry book than his Cotton Malone novel The Atlas Maneuver earlier this year. For me, I think it was the fact that this book was rooted in the same decommissioned Soviet-era missile system that served as a key aspect of the climax to one of my favorite Clive Cussler novels, Plague Ship, that helped make this one a much more memorable read for me. That, plus the inclusion of numbers stations, an old favorite subject for conspiracy-minded moments. And while the current Russian president isn't mentioned by name (and on the same subject, when I said his name in front of a Spanish-speaking colleague yesterday, she thought I was calling him a homophobic slur in that language), just as Berry has made mockery of Trump in recent years, so he now uses Konstantin Franko as an insulting stand in for Putin and his imperialist aims in Ukraine. It's a good throwback of a book, and hopefully a sign that Berry is getting back to the heights he's had no trouble reaching in years past.
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