The Red Cliffs of Zerhoun

This action adventure quasi war story may be the best I've ever read. This should be made into a movie. It would make a great movie. The author is a renaissance man, a warrior poet. I'm glad I found this wonderful book.

We first met Dan Kilmer in  Castigo Cay , where the retired U.S. Marine sniper (I tread cautiously on the terminology: some members of the Corps say there's no such thing as a “former Marine” and, perhaps, neither is there a “former sniper”) had to rescue his girlfriend from villains in the Caribbean. The novel is set in a world where the U.S. is deteriorating into chaos and the malevolent forces suppressed by civilisation have begun to assert their power on the high seas.As this novel begins, things have progressed, and not for the better. The United States has fractured into warring provinces as described in the author's “Enemies” trilogy. Japan and China are in wreckage after the global economic crash. Much of Europe is embroiled in civil wars between the indigenous population and inbred medieval barbarian invaders imported by well-meaning politicians or allowed to land upon their shores or surge across their borders by the millions. The reaction to this varies widely depending upon the culture and history of the countries invaded. Only those wise enough to have said “no” in time have been spared.But even they are not immune to predation. The plague of Islamic pirates on the high seas and slave raiders plundering the coasts of Europe was brought to an end only by the navies of Christendom putting down the corsairs' primitive fleets. But with Europe having collapsed economically, drawn down its defence capability to almost nothing, and daring not even to speak the word “Christendom” for fear of offending its savage invaders, the pirates are again in ascendence, this time flying the black flag of jihad instead of the Jolly Roger.When seventy young girls are kidnapped into sex slavery from a girls' school in Ireland by Islamic pirates and offered for auction to the highest bidder among their co-religionists, a group of those kind of hard men who say things like “This will not stand”, including a retired British SAS colonel and a former Provisional IRA combatant (are either ever “retired” or “former”?) join forces, not to deploy a military-grade fully-automatic hashtag, but to get the girls back by whatever means are required.Due to exigent circumstances, Dan Kilmer's 18 metre steel-hulled schooner, moored in a small port in western Ireland to peddle diesel fuel he's smuggled in from a cache in Greenland, becomes one of those means. Kilmer thinks the rescue plan to be folly, but agrees to transport the assault team to their rendezvous point in return for payment for him and his crew in gold.It's said that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. In this case, the plan doesn't even get close to that point. Improvisation, leaders emerging in the midst of crisis, and people rising to the occasion dominate the story. There are heroes, but not superheroes—instead people who do what is required in the circumstances in which they find themselves. It is an inspiring story.This book has an average review rating of 4.9 on Amazon at this writing, but you've probably never heard of it in mainstream media. Why? Because it presents an accurate view of the centuries-old history of Islamic slave raiding and trading, and the reality that the only way this predation upon civilisation can be suppressed is by civilised people putting it down in with violence commensurate to its assault upon what we hold most precious.The author's command of weapons and tactics is encyclopedic, and the novel is consequently not just thrilling but authentic. And, dare I say, inspiring.

Never seen a book with 200 reviews having no 1-2-3 stars, only 5-stars. It intrigues me that there is no opponents that will give 1-star reviews for political reasons. Having now read 17% so far it's 5-starEDIT (please read Matthew):When I reached 20+% mark, the book lost it's forward momentum and began coasting. The original interesting team was destroyed and all the cool equipment lost in a few pages. After skipping pages and then skipping over 1-2-5-10 chapters I arrived at the grand battle at the 80% mark. The grand battle was so riveting it should have been extended a lot. The no-action middle part of the book could be shortened considerably. Maybe there are some interesting moral/philosophical/political discussions going on in the middle part of the book, but I am not going to read all those uneventful pages to find those discussions.Wanted! More action scenes with the fort, and the port, and the enemy being destroyed in more detail with the awesome Bofors and more bang for the buck. If one heard or more correctly felt real heavy guns close up in live action you know what I mean. I wish the whole original team had been there and captured some heavy guns, wow. The rescue of the girls and the escape was really riveting, I was glued, couldn't leave it while making breakfast for my children.The author lacks an event/action co-editor. 1000s of sentences are spent describing unimportant events like; 'and then he nodded and the other guy nodded back, a hand-signal was given and a hand-signal was given back, the penlight was used and then used again, and the again again. The knife was designed by two Chinese policemen from Hong Kong. It was double edged, had a sharp point, made for stabbing and throwing not slashing, a heavy handle, no guard and the color of the handle was black, it was sheathed in a brown holster, the knife was fastened on my left side, but the belt was too wide so I had to use a string to fasten it, the string was from a parachute, that the Boss gave me...' times one hundred. One chapter is about a rope.... skip - hop - skip. If the author just could leave out equipment catalog descriptions, and the extreme detailing of unimportant events. Focus on the action/characters/relations/historical/political story and please don't kill most of the interesting heroes at the beginning.As a suspense novel I give it only 2 stars due to the 60% of in-action, I add an extra 1 star for its moral and political perspective. And a ½ star for the author's extensive knowledge of the waters, characteristics and geography of Northern Africa and the Canaries. I am sure he knows as much about everything else describes. So now 3.5 stars rounded of to 4 stars with some extended goodwill. Because of the authors audacity and courage in writing a novel about the destruction of evil Muslims he gets an extra and final 5th star.The book can surely be made into a very good action movie. But Big Hollywood will replace all the bad Muslim characters, and make the movie politically correct. The kidnapped girls and the heroes will be Muslims, the bad guys will be redneck deplorables, all set in the Appalachians. Maybe it can be made in the Philippines with a director like Tony Scott (Man on Fire) d. 2012.Lots of promise and praise for Matthew Bracken. I hope he will write many action books for a broader audience. Mr. Bracken is on an important mission and has a very good and winning concept, writing about conservative cultural, moral and political issues wrapped in the suspense novel format. He has the potential of a new Dean Koontz.

An excellent novel of adventure. Rescuing students from an all girls school in Ireland kidnapped by a group of Muslims from Northern Africa. The kidnappers are planning to sell the young girls while the good guys are fighting set backs while trying to get to the girls location. The men involved have been hired by a wealthy gentleman after an economic collapse changed the world for the worse. Matt Bracken spins a great yearn about an American who lives aboard his sailboat who gets roped into the hijinks of his life but succeeds in an Herculean effort in rescuing the young girls. A classic good verses evil epic.

I think in the past this would have been called a "ripping yarn", and it holds your attention throughout.The author is clearly knowledgeable on things military, and there is much detailed description throughout.There is a strong civilisation v Islam theme going on, and credit to the author for addressing a politically taboo subject head-on. Anyone who has their mind closed to the increasing threat from Islam needs to read this, and recognise its credibility.Why not 5 stars? First, it needs a professional editor to tidy up typos and repetition throughout, which is not by any means disastrous, just distracting. And secondly, the amount of technical detail in descriptions needs to be proportional to the needs of the story; eg, a long detailed description of the main character's own ship is useful, as we spend a long time on it. A detailed description of the main weapons used is useful, as they are around a lot. Likewise, a good description of the fort helps the story immensely. But long descriptions of things we only encounter briefly, eg other ship's engines, or how to tie a climbing harness out of rope, are distracting, and critically, sometimes detract from the pace of the tale at key times.But get it and read it, it's great.

Although set in the near future, this novel conjures up a world from the distant past. Following a worldwide economic collapse, humanity has entered what the author calls a ¨pre-digital¨ age, one that will be familiar to anyone who has followed the likes of James Howard Kunstler and his ilk. Cellphones no longer work, the electricity grids are failing, financial transactions are carried out in gold, NATO has been disbanded, the Rule of Law is dead, many Western countries are wracked by civil war and full-scale wars have engulfed much of the Asian landmass.Added to all this, the Barbary pirates are back, using their bases in North Africa to raid the European coast, raping and pillaging and hauling into slavery anyone they can get their hands on. Only now, rather than using such ancient technologies as sailing ships and cutlasses, they are equipped rigid-hull inflatables and AK-47s, making them an even more deadly force than they were in centuries gone by.It is one such raid – on a girl's boarding school on the west coast of Ireland – that establishes the context for the plot. Some 70 young ladies, many from the families of the European elite, have been kidnapped. They are doomed to a life of rape and abuse unless an ad hoc rescue mission can be thrown together in the ever-narrowing window of opportunity left to those who would like to set them free.It is into this heady cocktail of chaos and violence that out heroes are thrown. Dan, a former US Marine in his late thirties, is a happy-go-lucky chancer with a 60ft schooner. His plans to winter in the Caribbean with his girlfriend are thrown into disarray when he is approached by two ex-SAS soldiers and an ex-IRA terrorist to help carry out the rescue. Moved by the plight of the girls (as well as a princely sum in gold) he overlooks the dangerous and seemingly impossible odds and accepts the challenge.What follows is the kind of rip-roaring adventure yarn that will appeal to a wide range of readers. In many ways, it reminded me of books by Jack Higgins (high praise in this critic's eyes!). But what really makes this novel stand out is the author's refreshingly un-PC take on some of the major issues of our time, such as mass immigration and the threat it poses to the West. Because of the collapse into semi-barbarism that the book portrays, thoughts and actions that have been officially repressed are now the norm. This is a world in prisoners aren't taken, but are fed to the sharks instead; a world where Hama Rules are back in fashion, as are mass expulsions; and where no one speaks of ¨radical Islam anymore, just Islam¨.In this critic's mind, this fact alone justifies the purchase price, but underlying all of the above is the expert hand of the author Matt Bracken. A former US Navy SEAL, he knows a thing or two about the subject matter, and this intimate knowledge shines through on almost every page, adding yet another dimension to the proceedings.All in all, a very satisfying read and I now look forward to reading his other works, both fiction and non-fiction.

This I found was an easy read. Set in a near future dystopian world, this adventure rescue story sets a brisk pace. It is also a warning from the past about the effects of islamic slavery and piracy and the real possibility of it happening again.

A gripping read that has all too much possibility of becoming a reality. In each book Matt improves his craft. This is the best yet.

A good yarn. This will hopefully not be prophetic! Well planned story drawing on historical precedents to capture an unpleasant future.