Lash-Up

Bestseller Bond (Shattered Trident) puts a fresh spin on an increasingly popular suspense subgenre, a near-future war between the U.S. and China. The Chinese are using an enormous supergun built inside a mountain to destroy America's GPS satellites, a tactic designed to prevent the Americans from challenging China's takeover of Vietnam. Ray McConnell, the U.S. Navy's lead engineer on GPS technology, comes up with an idea to stop the Chinese assault on the satellites by retrofitting a prototype single-stage-to-orbit space vehicle, the Venture Star, and turning it into an armed, manned spacecraft capable of destroying the Chinese projectiles, known as "Dragon's Eggs," before they can hit American satellites. The project gets approved, but the tough part is putting the Venture Star on the launch pad in 70 days. The story of how Ray and his crew accomplish this task, despite interference from Chinese spies and oppositional politicians, is long and involved, but the payoff comes when the vehicle finally takes off into outer space and heads into battle. Bond proves once again why he ranks as one of today's top writers of military action thrillers. Agent: Robert Gottlieb, Trident Media Group. (May)