Thursday 23 February 2023

REVIEW - NO RESCUE - EMP SABOTAGE BY GRACE HAMILTON

  

Title: No Rescue
Series: EMP Sabotage
Author: Grace Hamilton
Release Date: 14th December 2022

BLURB from Goodreads
A rising storm. A sudden catastrophe. No hope of rescue…

A storm looms on the horizon as Ruth Garber and her granddaughter Stella travel by helicopter to an offshore drilling rig. Ruth, a world-class geologist, is there to consult on a software upgrade. Stella, a geology student, just wants to prove herself to her legendary grandmother. They don’t know their trip will become a grim struggle to survive…

When the helicopter goes down after dropping them off, they realize they’re in trouble. The platform loses power. Cell phones don’t work. Everything electronic is dead. Stranded with a skeleton crew on a steel platform miles from shore, battered by massive waves, the deadly truth of their predicament slowly sinks in.

Meanwhile, John and his son Curtis are in a fishing boat, suddenly adrift when the engine fails. The waves are getting higher, and the storm has them on a collision course with the rig.

As the castaways on the rig struggle to survive, they discover the back-up generator has been deliberately damaged. When people begin to disappear, they come to a grim realization.

Someone in their tiny group is a saboteur.

Goodreads Link


REVIEW
The cover would certainly grab by attention on a book shelf so it does its job well! It fits the book well and the cover could really be a “scene” from within the book.
The book begins with Ruth a highly qualified and much respected geologist and her granddaughter Stella having a rather rough helicopter flight out to the offshore drilling rig. Ruth is there to consult and help out with a new software upgrade. Stella is there to watch and learn basically as she is still a geology student. Stella is struggling to read the latest news about a terrorist group on her phone with an increasingly poor phone signal. Stella is being teased about the lack of “phone time” perhaps being a good thing and then the flight gets rather bumpy so much so it has one of the returning rig workers going pale! Things go from bad to worse when once dropped off the helicopter actually seems to lose power and crash! It is soon discovered that no one has any phone service and all the rig electronics seem to have stopped too. Now Ruth and Stella are stuck in the middle of the sea with no immediate prospect of rescue. Some of the staff on the rig are sent to shore using one of the lifeboats but Stella sneakily gets in and then gets back out of the lifeboat she wants to stay with her grandmother.

Whilst this is happening on the rig, John and his son Curtis are out fishing on their boat at sea when suddenly their machinery starts to go awry. They have to let a net full of fish go free in an attempt to save themselves and their boat and end up crashing into the rig then being “rescued” by those on the rig.
John & Curtis both have useful skills and Ruth soon sets them to work helping her attempt to get an old generator working. However, things are far from straight forward with staff members going missing, then one is found dead, it is becoming apparent that there is not just a saboteur on board, but a saboteur who isn’t afraid to kill to protect their identity and forward their cause. When it is revealed that the very terrorists that Stella was reading about on the helicopter are responsible for what is going on both on the rig and for the raging fires that those on the rig can see along the shoreline, it seems like all is lost.

I love the set of determined characters within this book. The way Ruth especially refuses to give up or give in. Ruth has Stella to assist her and the with the arrival of John and Curtis who immediately offer to help in any way they can, it makes you get behind Ruth and believe she can fix anything. I did kind of guess the identity of the saboteur before it was revealed in the book but the whole process Ruth, Stella, John & Curtis go through of who they think it could be and why makes for really interesting reading too. The book ends on a cliff hanger, and has made me really eager to read more as soon as possible!

My immediate thoughts upon finishing reading the book were, Oooo, strangely I had my suspicions about who the actual 'bad guy' was all along! Then I started thinking about what could/would happen next, can the survivors guard the station and prevent terrorists from getting on it and using it? How will they survive with dwindling supplies? So many questions!

Summing up, really enjoyed it and looking forward to reading more!


 


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