Scarecrow

I am a longtime fan of every book that Matthew Reilly has written. He is an Australian action-thriller writer that writes some independent novels and a couple series including the Scarecrow series. For a little background, Scarecrow is the call sign of Captain Shane Schofield, leader of an elite Marine Force Recon regiment. The most recent novel follows Scarecrow, on field assignment in the arctic, as he tries to stop a syndicate that calls themselves The Army of Thieves and has taken control of a Cold War Russian weapons facility known as Dragon Island; all the while trying to evade a French assassination team trying to claim the price put on his head. I currently am within fifty pages from the end and the book is by far one of the best thrillers I have read. The book is very heavy on action and has many different twists and turns. As the book progresses Scarecrow and his team of two other marines and three civilian scientists make their way through the would-be abandoned Russian facility fighting against an army of highly trained war criminals. In the facility some of the gruesome experiments the Russians did to try and make weapons come to light. One of which is thermobaric technology, usually an explosive, that physically ignites the oxygen around it and causes everything around it to be incinerated immediately. The book itself is rather short compared to some of the other ones that he has put out and because it goes by fast, it leaves me wanting more. The book is written very well and never slows to the point where i feel like i have to drudge through it to get to the next chapter. Overall I am very satisfied with the novel and it is a warm welcome back to the series after a rather long hiatus after its predecessor, Scarecrow.