It’s a normal day at the Dripping Springs Superstore. Shoppers look at merchandise while keeping their kids under control. Customers wait in the check-out lines, some chatting, others silently bored. Everything is about to change. Terrorists rush in with guns blazing, killing all who try to escape, rounding up the rest to hold hostage. Carrie, pregnant mother with a four-year-old at home, escapes into a stockroom closet. She calls her husband Jason, an Austin PD officer.
Jason and his partner find a raging massacre in the parking lot. They attack, badly outnumbered until Kelly and his rednecks fly onto the parking lot in their pickup trucks, shooting the terrorists where they stand. Inside the store, Carrie’s hiding place is about to be discovered. She pulls the pistol from her purse and waits, firing when her closet is opened, killing the enemy fighters. As her husband frantically searches for her, Carrie slips into the storefront and attacks, foiling the terrorist’s plans. Reunited, Carrie and Jason think the danger is over. They are wrong.
Terrorists attack them at home later that night, forcing them to flee into the darkness. Others join them as they try to find safety, the relentless enemy hounding them wherever they go. Now there is only one thing left to do. Fight back. Hunt the hunters.
This is a spin off from the highly enjoyable Bug Out series (I suggest you read that one first) which had citizens in their 60's to 80's in RV's taking on psycho militia, terrorists and part of their own military. I wasn't sure what to expect from this spin off as it is set in the same timeline as Bug Out, happening at the same time in Texas as events in Bug Out took place in California, Arizona and Utah. I wondered if it would be too similar but it wasn't. Events we heard about in Bug Out are briefly reported using TV news flashes which lets you compare the timeline without being bored by it being repeated.
This book begins with two Austin police officers Jason and Kyle rushing to the shopping mall to save Jason's pregnant wife Carrie, who is hiding in a shop with fellow shopper Kate while terrorists execute innocent people. The incident ends as the police, shoppers and armed rednecks take on the enemy with their legally owned weapons. However things turn bad soon after when the civilian shooters start getting targeted in their homes by revenge attacks, causing them to flee in their RV's. We see much more more of the terrorists in this book rather than the corrupt militia which dominate the early Bug Out books so although the characters flee in their vehicles, the plot still feels different.
We follow Jason, wife Carrie, daughter Chelsea, and his police partner Kyle and new girlfriend Kate as they flee towards Fredricksburg to link up with Jason's parents. Jason's brother Eric, girlfriend Kim and dog Paco are heading to Texas from Florida, hoping to stay out of trouble as they try to get across the locked down Texas border. The rednecks led by Kelly, Brenda and Junior split into groups to evade the terrorists with a specific meeting place in mind. There is the totally mad Curt who reminds me of Burt Gummer from Tremors! We also follow Department of Public Safety Patrol Boaters Juan Carlos and Brendan as they patrol Falcon Reservoir where terrorists try to cross to Texas and local law enforcement led by Chief Ramsay and Officer Sam Reilly, who are trying to fight the bad elements in the military and Federal government to try and save Texas. I really like all these characters and I'm already rooting for them!
We have the less pleasant characters in the form of slippery Simon Orr, trying to recruit rednecks for the militia as he was doing in Bug Out. I hate that guy! There is also the President of the Texas State Senate Kip Hendrix, whose obsession with secretary Maria is downright creepy and a source of worry for his advisor Jerry. They and Police Commissioner Holly have been trying to bring in gun control, unlimited migration, Sharia Courts in Muslim areas, leading them into conflict with local people. Now that Texas is under threat from terrorists, their previous stance makes them deeply unpopular-except in the government.
The main element of this book was introducing the characters and getting them all fleeing the situation in their RV's. They are trying to travel while under threat of terrorist attacks on the road and at RV parks like Bug Out but also attacks on the mall, a popular bar and the DPS border patrols so it has the same feel as Bug Out but is also new and different in other ways. I really enjoyed the book and can't wait to read the rest!
Robert Boren
No comments:
Post a Comment