Redback by Lindy Cameron

Publisher's Synopsis

On an otherwise tranquil pacific island resort, ex-army commander Bryn Gideon and the crack Australian Redback retrieval team stage a high-level rescue bid to recover hostages captured by rebels.

Thousands of miles away, American journalist Scott Dreher is researching computer wargames, and finds a pirated copy that reveal shady arms dealings and disturbing hints of connections between government agencies and known terrorists.

Around the globe, a string of seemingly unrelated incidents follow. Two ritual killings, one in London, one in Tokyo. A bomb on a Luxembourg train. A political assassination on an Australian beach, just days before an international summit. An explosion at an American army base. Are these isolated incidents in a world of opportunistic terrorists - or something infinitely more sinister?

As their paths inevitably cross, Gideon's Redbacks and Dreher find themselves in a race to expose the ultimate, terrifying conspiracy of a truly evil force that plays both sides of the terror divide against each other.

Review of Redback by Lindy Cameron 

Dr Jana Rossi, along with 35 other conference attendees from various countries, are being held captive by a militant group on the resort island of Laui in the Pacific. It seems that negotiations with Australia and the US aren't working and their lives could hang in the balance indefinitely. So when an efficient team of specialists come in swiftly and rescue everyone without casualties on either side, she is both impressed and curious as to their identity. It turns out we have all had our introduction to the team of Redbacks, led by Commander Bryn Gideon.

The rescue mission is quickly overshadowed by a series of horrific attacks around the world, each resulting in devastating destruction and loss of human life. The attacks appear to be isolated incidents, unrelated to one another. There is a train bombing on the French-Luxembourg border, a massive bomb blast on a building in downtown Dallas and an attack on a US military base that takes out two state of the art helicopters. They're the types of attacks that lead everyone to immediately assume that al-Qaeda has struck again.

While all of this death and destruction is taking place, US journalist Scott Dreher has made what he thinks could be a critical discovery on a pirated copy of a popular computer game. The virtual world in which the shoot-em-up is set looks a little too real for his liking. When he tries to interview the game creator in Japan he finds that the man has been murdered, but not before he leaves a dying message for Scott. Now the assassin is hunting Scott, too.

Cue yet another storyline and a team of Australian operatives aided by the CIA are sitting in Peshawar, Pakistan where known terrorists have been meeting on a daily basis. Frustrated by their "observe only" orders the Australians are left to tail their quarry from cafe to cafe while waiting for something to happen. The longer they wait the twitchier they get and the more convinced we become that trouble is brewing in the northern Pakistan city. One thing is certain, we're returning to this waiting game for a reason, it's just a matter of how it will be linked into the rest of the story.

This is a well-constructed, multi-plot storyline that switches us to different locations from chapter to chapter in order to cover events that are taking place around the world simultaneously. The effect is a sense that everything is happening at once. While an assassination takes place on one side of the world a building is being blown up on the other. The result: chaos. For the reader it's a case of hang on for dear life. Lindy Cameron does a superb job of holding the story together under a tight reign, controlling what threatens to blow completely out of control.

A word on the tone of the book, now. Although the stakes are undoubtedly high, as is the death toll, the tone of the books tends to settle more at the lighter end of the scale, particularly the dialogue that passes between the members of the Redback team. Put it down to the laconic Aussie attitude if you like, but it certainly puts you firmly in the cheering section when watching them operate.

Another noticeable feature worth mentioning is that even though the story is dotted with catastrophic events, their impact is softened by minimising the gratuitous descriptions of the after effects. Bombings take place but we're not forced to live the devastation caused, instead we focus more on chasing down the culprits.

Redback is a tense thriller that swings wildly from location to location building In intensity as it progresses. The reaction of the Redback team is inspired in that they are a crack force that is largely unfettered by government motivated commands or military regulation. They are free to move quickly and decisively ensuring the action sequence take precedence over petty squabbling.