Another riveting adventure with Scot Harvath, this time in India. Thor does a fantastic job of seamlessly combining spycraft, culture and Indian politics into his story. Not so reliant on his team as usual he partners up with Indian nationals, retired from the field as well as active duty. Everything in the story line rings true and it is interesting to have inside looks as to how the second most populous nation in the world lives. ( )

Rising Tiger, Brad Thor, author; Armand Schultz, narrator China perceived its power and influence as failing. To maintain or increase its power, it was necessary to foment chaos in the world, to bring attention to its greatness, not its weakness. To advance this effort, China chose to use India as its diving board, and using research and espionage, it staged attacks causing death and destruction, worked on new, more harmful, barbaric weapons of war (one of which is suspected of causing the Havana Syndrome), and committed cold-blooded murders, while remaining in the background. Instigating hostility between the United States and India, when an American is murdered in Jaipur, enabling a plane that crash killed the Indian chief of Defense Staff of the Indian Armed Forces, General Mehra, with fingers that potentially fingered Pakistan as the engineer of the heinous tragedy, using violent enemies of the West from many countries, it used its energy to foment distrust with possibly disastrous responses. Yang Xin worked for the Chinese Intelligence Bureau. He aided the Science and Technology Commission in their effort to develop more sophisticated weapons that used directed energy. It was part of the effort to make China a more influential and powerful leader on the world stage. To bring glory to China, he created chaos, he tested weapons on innocent people, people who came from countries viewed as threats, countries that were democracies. His methods were criminal. Scot Harvath, a former Navy Seal, now a covert intelligence operator, is sent to India to investigate the death of his friend, Eli Ritter, an intelligence officer murdered in Jaipur. Asha Patel is working for RAW, in the Special Operations Division, on a secret mission, to find out who brought down the helicopter that killed so many innocent people. Although unknown to each other, their lives and work will eventually intersect. Most of the “good guy” characters are very engaging and credible. Their dialogue is authentic and witty, clearly representative of the real, verbal exchanges of people from different cultures who enjoy working together. Vijay Chabra, an ex-police officer, now a United States Embassy investigator, works alongside Harvath. His comments are pitch perfect as are the comments of Onkar Raj, Asha’s superior, who works alongside her, and Special Secrtary Gopal Gupta, soon to retire. Even villains like Aga Sayed, Basheer Durrani, Carbon, and the Kumar family, who will do anything for a fee, blackmailing or disappearing all those who get in the way, receive the justice they deserve, in the end and react realistically when confronted. Some, may view the novel as almost a fairy tale, as all the threads get knitted together in what might be considered, a not very plausible happy ending. The saving grace is the constant action that interrupts a dialogue that is sometimes overwrought with unimportant information. There is a great deal of violence, some rather savage and cruel, as well as the willful disregard for rules in the black ops operations, which some may find appalling. The author involves multiple countries in his effort to illustrate China’s underhanded efforts. Using the United States, India,Turkey, Pakistan Afghanistan, groups called the G-Company and another called the Carlton Group, he has woven a novel about China’s underhanded efforts and the people, both good and bad, that must prevent the intended tragedy. Could this presage our future? As China tries desperately to become the “Rising Tiger” of the world, Rishi Puri becomes known as “the Rising Tiger” of India, and he seems destined to become their next Prime Minister. He is a man very much interested in improving US/India relationships and in joining the effort of America to create an Asian version of NATO, a peacekeeping alliance. The very thought of that strikes fear in the hearts of the Chinese, as the thought of Ukraine joining NATO enraged Russia and Putin. One can’t help but wonder if this multi-level espionage thriller that Thor has written, is a book about our future, as we witness the temper tantrums of China and Russia today, North Korea and Iran, Saudi Arabia and others, as they posture themselves in a show of prowess, when they believe their autonomy seems threatened. ( )

The book was no where near as good as the others in the series. In fact, it was rather dull. It's hard to believe that Thor wrote it as the writing formula is quite different from his earlier books and there is no suspense whatsoever. When Harvath meets with his Indian counterpart there are lengthy and boring conversations about food and family life. This isn't what we have seen in earlier novels. I had to skip pages in order to stay awake.

This was a disappointing read but I have noticed that when a series gets to be as long as this one, the author usually has 1 or 2 setbacks. ( )