Guest Reviewer: Jay Graham
Title: Gambit - Sequel to Checkmate
Author: Karna Small Bodman
Publisher: St.Martin's Press
ISBN-13: 9780765319289 (Hardcover)
Release Date: February 2008
Genre/Sub-genre: Action Thriller/Suspense
Year/Setting: Present Day/Washington DC, Travis AFB, China, Taiwan
Overall Rating: 3.0
Sexual Content Rating: Sensual
Language (Profanity/Slang) Rating: Mild
Violent Content Rating: Moderate, some pretty graphic plane crash descriptions, but well done.
Karna's Website:
www.karnabodman.com
Gambit, written by Karna Small Bodman, is a second in a series based on Dr. Carmeron (Cammy) Talbot, a brilliant scientist and researcher, as her team develops and implements revolutionary new technologies for missile defense. In Gambit, the United States is gripped in fear as first one, then multiple civilian airliners are exploding mid-air. The President and his military advisors are helpless to stop the attacks and eventually the entire civilian air fleet is grounded. The countries’ economy is in shambles.
The pressure is on for Dr. Talbot’s company to come up with a way to combat the crisis, similar to when she pulled a rabbit out of the hat in the first book with a new missile defense system. This story will keep you up at night just so you can see how it turns out. (I love books like that.)
During the course of this bona fide thriller, Dr. Talbot also finds ways to turn the State Department upside down on a personal whim and continues to both undermine and discourage the affections of the very man she is longing to be close to. She continues her pattern from the first book (CheckMate) as a paradox of brilliance and insight in her professional life and almost painful neurosis in her personal life. Dr, Talbot can’t seem to deal with her father’s death as a test pilot some thirty years earlier and even now is unable to even get on a plane without panic attacks when she is in the aeronautics industry. She works on SDI critical initiatives of national and international importance and yet repeatedly seems to be unable to comprehend the most simple of personal security measures.
For me, ‘frustrating,’ is way I would describe this work. On the one hand, the story is a good one, and it’s clear that the author has some direct experience or access to the military, to life inside the beltway in Washington and even perhaps overseas foreign policy. On the other hand, the heroine, Dr. Cameron Talbot has to be the most mismatched jumble of intelligence and immaturity, of critical insight and blind-as-a-bat dumb luck I have ever seen in a single literary character. In today’s vernacular, Dr. Talbot would be referred to as having a ‘lot of baggage.’
Do I think the book is worth reading? Absolutely.
Would I recommend this book to a friend? That depends on the friend.
One thing is for certain, I am very anxious to see the next in the series. My recommendation is to read this book and just enjoy the story. I also make a plea to the author to make Dr. Talbot a genuine heroine. Readers love to see a chink in the hero’s armor and then genuine growth to deal with it; few want to see a hero who so clearly needs professional counseling, even if they do save the world.
Jay
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