Blackmail, Rick Campbell
Blackmail, Rick Campbell
8 Rating(s)
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

Blackmail
A Novel

Author: Rick Campbell

Narrator: Michael Kramer

Unabridged: 10 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/11/2017


Synopsis

"As in Tom Clancy's technothrillers, the war maneuvers feel authentic and are described in stellar detail." —Booklist on Blackmail

In Rick Campbell's new thriller Blackmail, a bold military and political strike by the Russian government leaves the U.S. reeling, crippled and vulnerable, with only a desperate long shot chance to avoid a devastating world war.

The U.S. aircraft carrier patrolling the Western Pacific Ocean is severely damaged by a surprise salvo of cruise missiles. While the Russian government officially apologizes, claiming it was the result of fire control accident during a training exercise, it was instead a calculated provocation. With the U.S. Pacific fleet already severely under strength, the Russian President decides that the US response is a clear indication of their weakness, militarily and politically, and initiates a bold plan.

Political unrest is spreading through the Eastern European states. The Russian Northern Fleet moves swiftly in the Mediterranean Sea, the Russian army is moving west to the border, and Russian Baltic and Black Sea Fleets are mobilized. In one bold strike, the Russian army moves to reoccupy a large number of the industrialized areas of the former USSR, while blockading the vital sea passages through which the world’s oil and natural gas transit. To make matters worse, Russia’s Special Forces have wired every major oil and natural gas pipeline with explosives. If the U.S. makes one move to thwart Russia, they’ll destroy them all. The U.S. is risking disaster if it acts, but the alternative is quite possibly worse. Torn between the unthinkable and the impossible, the only possible move—to launch an attack on all fronts, simultaneously.

About Rick Campbell

Rick Campbell, a retired Navy Commander, spent more than twenty years on multiple submarine tours. On his last tour, he was one of the two men whose permission was required to launch the submarine's nuclear warhead-tipped missiles. Campbell is the author of The Trident Deception, Empire Rising and Ice Station Nautilus, and lives with his family in the greater Washington, D.C. area.

About Michael Kramer

Michael Kramer has narrated over 100 audiobooks for many bestselling authors. He read all of Robert Jordan’s epic Wheel of Time fantasy-adventure series as well as Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive series. He received AudioFile magazine's Earphones Award for the Kent Family series by John Jakes and for Alan Fulsom's The Day After Tomorrow. Known for his “spot-on character portraits and accents, and his resonant, well-tempered voice” (AudioFile), his work includes recording books for the Library of Congress’s Talking Books program for the blind and physically handicapped.Kramer also works as an actor in the Washington, D.C. area, where he lives with his wife, Jennifer Mendenhall (a.k.a. Kate Reading), and their two children. He has appeared as Lord Rivers in Richard III at The Shakespeare Theatre, Howie/Merlin in The Kennedy Center’s production of The Light of Excalibur, Sam Riggs and Frederick Savage in Woody Allen’s Central Park West/Riverside Drive, and Dr. Qari Shah in Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul at Theatre J.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ed

Strong characters in the Trident Deception series return in book 4 facing a major international threat from a resurgent Russia. The President of Russia banks on the US and NATO allies backing down from it's expansionist invasions of Lithuania and Eastern Ukraine. He guesses wrong resulting in a majo......more

Goodreads review by 3 no 7

“Blackmail” is the fourth book in Rick Campbell’s series of contemporary military thrillers. It is not necessary to have read the other books in the series, but readers who enjoy “Blackmail” will certainly want to read the previous books. A Russian submarine encounters an American warship in the Pac......more

Goodreads review by Samuel

I thank Netgallery and the Publisher for providing the electronic review copy. Blackmail is the fourth military thriller by long serving US Navy Veteran Rick Campbell. Written in the grand speculative fiction tradition of Clancy and Bond, Blackmail paints a picture of how the third world war could c......more

Goodreads review by Wendy

“Blackmail” the fourth book in the “Trident Deception” series opens with a Russian submarine attack on the USS aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. With damage to one of the already depleted carriers in the U.S. Pacific fleet after their war with the Chinese, the carrier heads to port, out-of- commi......more

Goodreads review by Tad

A surprise Russian attack on a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Pacific leaves the already understrength fleet vulnerable. The Russians apologize for the “accident”, but it turns out the attack was only the opening salvo in a bold Russian plan to create a buffer zone along its border with Europe. Blackm......more