Deadly Impact

Richard Mariner #28

by Peter Tonkin

Sayonara. The world’s largest Liquid Natural Gas tanker. She represents a huge and risky investment for Heritage Mariner. The first vessel of this size to sail without a crew, using only computer control and millimetre-precise GPS positioning, she is programmed to dock automatically in Japan.

Her cargo has the potential of fifty-five atom bombs, which will power the construction of the floating city of Kujukuri thirty-five miles west of Tokyo. But four days before docking, a group of pirates goes aboard, breaks into her secure areas, hacks her computers and takes control. Richard Mariner has ninety-nine hours to assemble a team and retake Sayonara in an increasingly desperate, danger-filled race against time to save his ship, protect his company and safeguard one of the most densely populated areas on earth.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2014

About the author

Peter Tonkin's first novel, KILLER, was published in 1978. His work has included the acclaimed "Mariner" series that have been critically compared with the best of Alistair MacLean, Desmond Bagley and Hammond Innes.

More recently he has been working on a series of detective thrillers with an Elizabethan background. This series, "The Master of Defense", has been characterised as 'James Bond meets Sherlock Holmes meets William Shakespeare'. Each story is a classic 'whodunit' with all the clues presented to the reader exactly as they are presented to the hero, Tom Musgrave. The Kirkus Review described them as having 'Elizabethan detail, rousing action sequences, sound detection...everything a fan of historical mysteries could hope for."

Reviews

[Alex Cantone · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very late to the party, Deadly Impact was one of my earliest reads on joining and struggling my way through Good Reads. Back then, I rated it 2★ and instead of a review, mistakenly submitted a comment instead: “Well written with good descriptions of the vessel and seamanship; plot had its moments but the characters were a little too far-fetched for me and lacked empathy. (Mar 11, 2016 04:06PM)”

A bit rough, considering 78% of readers liked it, and though 6 and a half years have lapsed, I still remember the pertinent bits: the star performer - a crewless mega liquified gas tanker, controlled by computer systems and GPS, boarded by pirates who hack into the system, sending it on collision course with Tokyo harbour. Richard Mariner to the rescue. Can’t remember what the wife did. That was the good bit.

Where it dragged (for this reader) was the endless back chatter and descriptions of designer clothes and food worn/devoured by husband and wife sea captains, Richard and Robin Mariner, and, the insertion of a pair of lesbian anti-terrorists (as if it mattered), as though author Peter Tonkin was pitching towards that segment of the market.

Because of this I shied away from further episodes in the “Mariner series”, until recently. I won’t wait as long again.

[s · Rating 2 out of 5]

I imagine I would've liked this better if I were really into boats. Since I'm not, most of the descriptions of the boats and the scenes on them were really boring to me. Too much "boat jargon" for someone (like me) who doesn't know starboard from aft.

This also made it nearly impossible for me to visualize what was a lot of the time. Unfortunately I borrowed this awhile ago and I don't have access to the story to give any examples. But it was really
frustrating to not be able to picture what was happening, particularly in action scenes.

[Josef Hernandez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another strong thriller by Peter Tonkin

For a full review, please go to http://www.examiner.com/review/deadly... and follow me on Twitter @josenher