Book title : Scarecrow And The Army Of Thieves

Author : Matthew Reilly

Synopsis : At an abandoned Soviet base in the Arctic, the battle to save the world has begun...

THE SECRET BASE

It is a top-secret base known only as Dragon Island. A long-forgotten relic of the Cold War, it houses a weapon of terrible destructive force, a weapon that has just been re-activated...

A RENEGADE ARMY

When Dragon Island is seized by a brutal terrorist force calling itself the Army of Thieves, the fate of the world hangs in the balance, and there are no crack units close enough to get there in time to stop the Army setting off the weapon.

ONE SMALL TEAM

Except, that is, for a small equipment-testing team up in the Arctic led by a Marine captain named Schofield, call-sign SCARECROW. It's not a strike force; just a handful of Marines and civilians. It's not equipped to attack a fortified island held by a vicious army. But Scarecrow will lead the team in anyway, because someone has to.

THE ULTIMATE HERO IS BACK, FACING THE ULTIMATE ARMY OF VILLAINS

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Here's the thing. Cuss words are a major turn-off for me (yes yes I'm a prude I know). And this book is absolutely littered with them. So already my first impression is not a good one.

But then - hot damn! Hot frigging frigging damn! This book proceeded to blow me off my feet, chapter by chapter, blasting me with enough force to shoot me to the moon. Each sentence packs a punch like no other, each action scene well and graphically detailed. My adrenaline never came down from its high and I just had to keep reading and reading. There was no room to breathe, no space for me to pause.

Each character in the book is fleshed out and well-realized. You have your battle-hardened hero with some crazy ingenuity, a damsel that ain't going to be in distress any time soon, and a very cute but very dangerous robot that could give BB-8 a run for its money. And surprisingly, the hero isn't the one that gets to dabble in romance. Instead it's the side characters, and though the romance is little and not very emphasized, it's refreshing and very real. Because for Christ's sakes, we're trying to save the world here! We hardly have time for courting!

And the plot twist. THE PLOT TWIST. Just by revealing that there is a plot twist should be a spoiler in itself. I doubt even the mighty Sherlock Holmes is able to crack this one. There. I should probably stop now.

Wrap it up now - stars or stones? Stars. Definitely stars. And by the Lord, this book is filled with a galaxy of them.

Now where can I get the sequel?