Tom Grace

Based loosely on Pope John Paul II's secret elevation of a Chinese bishop to cardinal, in this novel, a dying pope's last wish is to liberate a Chinese bishop, who has been imprisoned for 30 years. Nolan Kilkenny is tasked with this daring rescue, and he assembles a team of special ops personnel of Chinese descent and takes prototype aircraft for his escape. Meanwhile, the caretaker pope is balancing the pressures of this mission, the election of a successor pope, and the treachery of a cardinal, who puts the mission at risk. The star of the novel is the Chinese cardinal, who is loved by all the people, whose lives he touches. Grace's endnotes are not to be missed.… (mer)

Fast-paced thriller, starring ex-Navy SEAL Nolan Kilkenny. A killer satellite in space is using a laser to fortify the launch business of a commercial company, led by a sociopath. Nolan's girlfriend is on the International Space Station, when a survivor of a blast arrives, and she contacts him via backdoor channels. Nolan then finds a series of other attacks involving Chinese and Russian assets in space, and he digs deep to find the culprit. This is one of those books where it is necessary to suspend belief, but I liked all four of Tom Grace's books.… (mer)

I read this book under the title of 'Polar Quest'. There is surely no coincidence that there is a recommendation from Clive Cussler on the over and this is very much in the style of and very similar to his plot lines. For Nolan Kilkenny=Dirk Pitt, in fact it was rather unfortunate that I had read this soon after 'Atlantis Found' as a lot of the plot devices and characters seem to repeat from that, even down to the artic scenes. The plot did seem to unravel towards the end and we never get to find what was found in the artic lake, although an enjoyable enough thriller.… (mer)