Title: Black Trident
Author: Martin Grise
Genre: War Fiction, Military Thriller
Book Blurb:
"This is a remarkable book set in an ecologically ruined earth of the near future, focused on men who are adapted to that world and who therefore are ruined...Bleeding-edge tech displayed in action throughout." - David Drake, author of Hammer's Slammers Taiyari has eight weeks, at best, to save her lover from his boyhood dreams. In the mid-21st century, insurgencies and civil unrest stemming from climate change have created a boom for private military corporations. Caden Duran, clawing his way out of an abusive childhood, hopes to rise through the well-paid ranks of a PMC and become one of the world’s elite soldier-celebrities. Now, battling an insurgency in Colombia, Caden finds himself on the fast-track to admiration and wealth. He is participating in a field promotion campaign, where PMC officers compete for promotion to colonel in the course of a single contract. The problem is that, to win the contest, officers must demonstrate their efficiency by completing their combat missions with the smallest number of men and assets. This makes it harder to win their battles – and even survive them. As the campaign progresses, the officers, including Caden, take ever-more audacious risks in the field, and it is clear that someone will eventually miscalculate, overreach, and most likely pay with his life. Caden once saved Taiyari’s village from a murderous cartel; since then, she has tried to convince him to leave this life of legal contract killing before his luck runs out. But in Colombia, she hears disturbing rumors of what Caden has done to civilians in his obsessive pursuit of victory. Uncovering evidence of war crimes would hardly be easy, and even less palatable, but Taiyari is not the type to accept a pretty lie. Her investigation comes to a head at the very moment the field promotion campaign reaches its knife-edge climax, and it is obvious that everyone involved will have to pay a price for their dreams.
My Review:
How far would you go to achieve your dreams? Murder? Death? Unspeakable acts, all for a military promotion? Caden Duran has risen from a horrific childhood through the ranks of a private military corporation (PMC for short) to achieve eerie celebrity status as a for-hire elite solider. Caden and those like him are due for a promotion to colonel and must successfully perform a single contract using as little supplies and men as possible. It's war games to the ultimate extreme and people's lives are thrown away like garbage. Caden has lost perspective and it will be up to his girlfriend, Taiyari, to uncover the truth and save her beloved Caden from a fate worse than death. Will she be able to save Caden from his dreams or will she be too late?
Black Trident is a gripping military thriller from start to finish. It's a time-relevant storyline ripped from the headlines, or what I perceive is happening in the world's military in the not-too-distant future. Caden is an alpha male character who is quickly being lured into a very corrupt life. His journey into the depths of evil was fascinating to read and had me whipping through the pages. I connected with Taiyari right away and her plight to save Caden quickly became mine as well. The plot moves at a fast pace with plenty of action, gore, and death. The author has a gift for descriptive narration and the reader will be sucked into the story. Whether you side with Caden or one of the other factions in the story, you won't be able to stop reading. Intricate details make this a must-read as does the main theme. Fans of Predator and Tour of Duty will love Black Trident. Highly recommend!
My Rating: 5 stars
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Author Biography:
My name isn’t Martin Grise. It’s a pseudonym and it’s handy. As Oscar Wilde wrote, “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
I’m an academic by training, and I burnish that public face. I publish articles and books in my field, teach students, give public talks, all the usual. I’m a fairly good professor. But I wasn’t raised by academics; I grew up in a blue-collar family in a hollow shell of a town where the sustaining industry died before I was born and the people left behind like human flotsam. That dour world of dead-end jobs, dirty bars, of clinging to sanity between paychecks and weekends is where I’m from. I managed to get out.
Then I entered the university and learned how the world works, what globalization does to cultures and families, how elites control foreign policy for their own benefit; but I also learned through travel, and I don’t mean tourism. People in several countries opened their homes to me, common people, indigenous people. They taught me about their daily lives, their religions, their problems, their dreams, and I saw academic theories playing out in peoples’ lives. The university taught my mind, and the people taught my heart. That’s real education, something I treasure. And then there’s what Fritz Leiber Jr. called “the true spirit of adventure,” that adolescent, devil-may-care, joyful recklessness that the best people never entirely outgrow. In all my writing, advocacy, research, and teaching, I’ve never forgotten the adventure stories of my youth, and I continue writing them because, no matter how many degrees I earn, they keep banging on the back door of my mind, clamoring for a drink. That’s the reason for the pseudonym, you see – in the academic world, I would be pilloried in some quarters if it was known I spent some of my time writing popular fiction about war, crime, science fiction, and espionage. He should be researching, or applying for the next grant; what kind of professor is he? Doesn’t he have enough work to do? So the mask of Martin Grise, that scamp, shields me from all that and protects my steady paycheck and pension.
Social Media Links:
Amazon Author Page https://www.amazon.com/Martin-Grise/e/B092WYDCKR/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
Goodreads Author Page https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17293961.Martin_Grise
Reviewed by: Mrs. N