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Death Force #4
Ice Force
The fourth Death Force adventure plunges the elite squad of hardened mercenaries into a deadly battle for survival in the frozen wastelands of the Arctic A plane carrying a Russian oil billionaire has crashed mysteriously in the Arctic in the middle of a brutal winter. Nobody knows why, nor can they locate the aircraft's black box. With only days left before the signal switches itself off, the Death Force men are hired by a rival billionaire to make one last desperate bid to find the black box. But when they finally locate the plane, they also uncover a deadly secret—this was no ordinary crash, and there's a reason why the black box went missing. Soon they find themselves on the run for their lives, battling an unseen enemy across the world's most terrifying landscape. Caught up in a vast conspiracy to control the world's last great reserves of oil, Death Force crew must fight the most overwhelming odds they have ever faced just to stay alive.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
1 person is currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Matt Lynn
20 books76 followersI am a thriller writer, living near London. 'Death Force' is the first in a series of books following a group of mercenaries around the world. It owes a lot to action, adventure writers like Alistair MacLean, and World War Two writers like Sven Hassel. It also owes a lot to Westerns. When I'm not writing thrillers, I write a financial column for Bloomberg, and I write for The Spectator.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 29, 2014
The fourth book in the mercenary series. This time the gang go into the Arctic in terrible conditions to locate and recover a black box. And there are people who want them to fail, resulting in some gun battles at the end of the world.
I've read the previous three and was right to leave a bit of a gap before picking this up, read close together you do see the format being repeated, but leaving it a couple of years, I was comfortable with catching up with Death Force but not annoyed by the formula. Having this in the bleakness of the Arctic was interesting and added a natural peril to the situation then compounded by mysterious bad guys with better weapons.
It worked for me and reminded me why I enjoyed the series in the first place.
I've read the previous three and was right to leave a bit of a gap before picking this up, read close together you do see the format being repeated, but leaving it a couple of years, I was comfortable with catching up with Death Force but not annoyed by the formula. Having this in the bleakness of the Arctic was interesting and added a natural peril to the situation then compounded by mysterious bad guys with better weapons.
It worked for me and reminded me why I enjoyed the series in the first place.
August 29, 2012
This is the fourth book in the Death Force series and it plunges the
elite squad of hardened mercenaries into a deadly battle for survival
in the frozen wastelands of the Artic. A plane carrying a Russian oil
billionaire crashes in the Artic in the middle of a brutal winter. No one
knows why nor can they locate the signal from the aircrafts black box
With only days left before the signal from the box shuts down the men from
Death Force are hired by a rival billionaire to find the box. They finally
locate the plane only to discover that this was no ordinary crash. The
box is missing and theres a reason. They soon find themselves on the run
for their lives. Caught up in a conspiracy to control the worlds last
great oil reserve the men from Death Force must fight the most overwhelming
odds thy have ever faced.
elite squad of hardened mercenaries into a deadly battle for survival
in the frozen wastelands of the Artic. A plane carrying a Russian oil
billionaire crashes in the Artic in the middle of a brutal winter. No one
knows why nor can they locate the signal from the aircrafts black box
With only days left before the signal from the box shuts down the men from
Death Force are hired by a rival billionaire to find the box. They finally
locate the plane only to discover that this was no ordinary crash. The
box is missing and theres a reason. They soon find themselves on the run
for their lives. Caught up in a conspiracy to control the worlds last
great oil reserve the men from Death Force must fight the most overwhelming
odds thy have ever faced.
June 27, 2012
Matt Lynn delivers: the bad guys get in the neck., and his band of rough and ready good guys soldier on and endure. Bloody cracking stuff
January 25, 2025
Some how I've missed out the third in this series after reading the first two and leapt over to read the fourth, which I hate doing but here we are.
The men of Dudley Emergency Force, known in mercenary circles as Death Force, are currently doing a ‘low level’ job rescuing a footballer’s kidnapped girlfriend; while still coming to terms of members and friends they lost in their last mission (the one I didn't read). Their success opens up another dangerous, if a very lucrative one. Russian oligarch Kolodin wants to hire them for a secret mission. The plane of another oligarch has gone missing over the Arctic, and he thinks foul play. To prove it, he wants the men of the DEF to find the planes black box to show the plane was intentionally brought down. But the battery on the black box will die on the next 3 days. While some feel the stakes are too high, the pay of half a million proves too much, plus the location of Steve’s young son he's never seen, is enough to get them to agree. Dropped off on the ice shelf, the team are hit by an enormous storm, dropping temperatures, visibility, and the landscape itself. However, as they begin the search for the plane wreckage, they are attacked by another military force on the ice. Now, facing a formidable armed group in one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet, the men of Death Force are in a race to find the black box and escape. Bur, they start to believe that something isn’t adding up and there's a secret being kept from them, that could get them killed.
This is this equivalent of a dumb action movie, filled with all the tropes you'd find in an eighties action film; lots of stereotypes, bad quips, and jokes, over the top action, an unnecessary sex scene and something nazi related for some reason.
The characters and plot are about as deep as a puddle. Either because it has been so long since I read the last one, and I'm misremembering, the characters just seem more action hero stereotypes than on the earlier books. The vodka drinking, reckless Russian former spetsnaz, the rugby loving posh British officer, the sexy yet deadly former Israeli operative aren't exactly the most original, and their attempts at jokes can be eye rolling, but for this type of story they're fine, even if it's one's you've seen countless times before if you've read any books similar to this.
The plot of Russian oligarchs pitted against each other is very much a trope at this point, and while it works out isn't anything better or worse than a ton of other books in this genre. The setting of a mission in the Arctic is a good one, but I felt it wasn’t used as well as it could have been. The double-crossing twist just past halfway, as there’s always a double-crossing twist, isn't a bad one, but perhaps the story wasn’t strong enough to make me care too much. Theres a few questions thrown up, where my OCD brain went. Like, I doubt World War II era machine guns and rifles hidden in a frozen bunker for over 60 years would still work. Or the explanation for the opposing armed force . This seemed a bit of a large plot hole.
Overall, it’s nothing special, but at the same time nothing painful. It has a little advantage over similar books, as this is focused on a whole team, but nothing to really make it stand head and shoulders over the countless similar titles. If you fancy an action packed read to fill that void of eighties and nineties action films, there’s worse you could pick up but then again there’s also better.
The men of Dudley Emergency Force, known in mercenary circles as Death Force, are currently doing a ‘low level’ job rescuing a footballer’s kidnapped girlfriend; while still coming to terms of members and friends they lost in their last mission (the one I didn't read). Their success opens up another dangerous, if a very lucrative one. Russian oligarch Kolodin wants to hire them for a secret mission. The plane of another oligarch has gone missing over the Arctic, and he thinks foul play. To prove it, he wants the men of the DEF to find the planes black box to show the plane was intentionally brought down. But the battery on the black box will die on the next 3 days. While some feel the stakes are too high, the pay of half a million proves too much, plus the location of Steve’s young son he's never seen, is enough to get them to agree. Dropped off on the ice shelf, the team are hit by an enormous storm, dropping temperatures, visibility, and the landscape itself. However, as they begin the search for the plane wreckage, they are attacked by another military force on the ice. Now, facing a formidable armed group in one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet, the men of Death Force are in a race to find the black box and escape. Bur, they start to believe that something isn’t adding up and there's a secret being kept from them, that could get them killed.
This is this equivalent of a dumb action movie, filled with all the tropes you'd find in an eighties action film; lots of stereotypes, bad quips, and jokes, over the top action, an unnecessary sex scene and something nazi related for some reason.
The characters and plot are about as deep as a puddle. Either because it has been so long since I read the last one, and I'm misremembering, the characters just seem more action hero stereotypes than on the earlier books. The vodka drinking, reckless Russian former spetsnaz, the rugby loving posh British officer, the sexy yet deadly former Israeli operative aren't exactly the most original, and their attempts at jokes can be eye rolling, but for this type of story they're fine, even if it's one's you've seen countless times before if you've read any books similar to this.
The plot of Russian oligarchs pitted against each other is very much a trope at this point, and while it works out isn't anything better or worse than a ton of other books in this genre. The setting of a mission in the Arctic is a good one, but I felt it wasn’t used as well as it could have been. The double-crossing twist just past halfway, as there’s always a double-crossing twist, isn't a bad one, but perhaps the story wasn’t strong enough to make me care too much. Theres a few questions thrown up, where my OCD brain went. Like, I doubt World War II era machine guns and rifles hidden in a frozen bunker for over 60 years would still work. Or the explanation for the opposing armed force . This seemed a bit of a large plot hole.
Overall, it’s nothing special, but at the same time nothing painful. It has a little advantage over similar books, as this is focused on a whole team, but nothing to really make it stand head and shoulders over the countless similar titles. If you fancy an action packed read to fill that void of eighties and nineties action films, there’s worse you could pick up but then again there’s also better.
December 10, 2012
Don't you hate it when you can't look past a minor flaw? It's like Tom Cruise with Scientology, Jim Carey dating Jenny McCarthy, Liam Neeson appearing in that woeful Star Wars film and babies with their lack of personal hygiene. If it wasn't for these minor flaws you could really enjoy what is before you, especially if you didn't get sick of Jim Carey years ago.
There is a lot to like about Matt Lynn's Ice Force, especially if you like the "real operation" styled thrillers that Chris Ryan and Andy McNab write. Matt differs from the others in this style with his humorous banter between the characters, something I really like to see in novels, something I am trying to do with my own writing. So what is it that I'm hung up on? The misogyny.
Now, I'm not saying that this book and the writer are misogynistic, rather I'm saying that there is a tone stated by some of the characters that women aren't good at soldiering, that they distract men from the soldiering and that they are generally just eye candy. This is typical bloke-y fare that you get with the military and men talking at the pub who hate to admit that they are not in charge in their relationship. It may be "real" but I really don't like reading it.
It reminds me of a cartoon: http://xkcd.com/385/
So, this was a great thriller, but points off for marginalising women.
There is a lot to like about Matt Lynn's Ice Force, especially if you like the "real operation" styled thrillers that Chris Ryan and Andy McNab write. Matt differs from the others in this style with his humorous banter between the characters, something I really like to see in novels, something I am trying to do with my own writing. So what is it that I'm hung up on? The misogyny.
Now, I'm not saying that this book and the writer are misogynistic, rather I'm saying that there is a tone stated by some of the characters that women aren't good at soldiering, that they distract men from the soldiering and that they are generally just eye candy. This is typical bloke-y fare that you get with the military and men talking at the pub who hate to admit that they are not in charge in their relationship. It may be "real" but I really don't like reading it.
It reminds me of a cartoon: http://xkcd.com/385/
So, this was a great thriller, but points off for marginalising women.
January 27, 2016
This is the latest book in the Death Force series, and I am fearful it will be the last. It was excellent. The books in the Death Force series are shameless action romps, but the thing that sets them apart from most other military action novels is the aspect of teamwork. Despite a very strong character in the main protagonist Steve, Lynn has created a very strong group of military experts who work together to achieve their goals. To me, this just seems to be more realistic than the lone wolf taking on whole armies approach that many of these novels take.
August 15, 2012
I'm a fan of this series... Although not as good as the first 3, it still was an entertaining read. I love each and every character, great back stories and an easy series to root for.. I look forward to book 5.. Please keep them coming!
July 11, 2014
Great book, hadn't read the others in the series before this but the characters were written so well you soon cared about them and understood the camaraderie. Excellent pacing, hard to put down and definitely recommended!!
August 5, 2013
I've thoroughly enjoyed this book from cover to cover it kept me wanting more. This book was described vividly so that you felt as if you were in the action
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews