Unacceptable Risk

Rating:
Summary: A Timely Thriller
Review: A group of middle eastern business men decides to fund a terrorist, Devan Gaudet, in a plan called Cordyceps. The plot is the namesake of a fungus which invades its pray and eats its vitals first and then its brain. To complete the metaphor Gaudet wants to take down the US stock market by a mass killing (its vitals) and the internet (its brain) by an advanced worm unleashed on the internet just prior to the holocaust. Sam races to stop Cordyceps assisted by the mysterious Benoit Moreau a smart French woman gone bad who is locked away in a French jail forever. She is educated, sophisticated, street smart and wants to reclaim her life. Against overwhelming odds she conceives a plan, in her words using devil bait to catch devils, and fools everybody in her bid for release. Supporting character Michael Bowden a jungle ethnobiologist in the Amazon adds to the plot and gives Dun an excuse to tell us about medicines and the jungle. It's a complex sophisticated thriller that you won't want to put down and is worth the read.

Rating:
Summary: Need a longer Lunch Hour
Review: Book Review:

I had to stop reading this at noon because I was getting back too late from my lunch hour. I should have known since I have already read Dun's other books.

The plot and characters are at least up to Dun's usual standards and are described in the other reviews in as much detail as anyone needs before reading the book. As a matter of fact, instead of reading the reviews just read the book. Save you time and you will not regret it.

The intimate familiarity with the out doors, the hi tech -- just a little higher than current science -- and still highly credible, and the intense and compelling plot, all elements from his past works also appear here undiminished if not better than ever.

Added is a whole section taking place in the Amazon which is simply a lot of fun. I have never been to the Amazon (other than dot com) but obviously Dun has.

Highly Recomended, but only when you have time to totally lose yourself in a book.

Rating:
Summary: Refreshingly Different!
Review: Dun's approach is a new mix of the basic elements. At first I didn't know quite what to make of it. There is a peculiar effort to draw characters in a thriller that are struggling with moral conflict and even beyond that to comment upon national termperments in the context of individual struggles. Although the treatment moral and ethical issues is simplistic, and focuses on just a couple elements of complex issues, it is nevertheless very entertaining at least for some of us. Most thrillers just thrill and don't bother wrestling with any hard issues. Dun doesn't do it in a profound way but he does do it in an entertaining way and for all the failure to approach anything like a literary treatment, he does end up with a piece of swashbuckler and a smattering of social commentary. For example in Unacceptable Risk the French are very self serving, and somewhat duplicitous and extraordinarily susceptible of rationalization sufficient to enable them to sell out the rest of the world for their own ends. That'd the story of a couple French secret service types. Benoit Moreau is a criminal, wants to become good, but resorts to her old evil methods to accommodate her goal. So that she can get out of prison and get to her one true love she prostitutes herself, until its no longer necessary, and so achieves virtue when vice is no longer required. This is not to say that she doesn't struggle valiantly to leave her transgressions behind at the earliest possible moment. But before that moment, she typifies everything she supposedly abhors. Dun presents the dilemna cleverly and we find ourselves rooting for this morally comprised woman who one could say is pretty "good" for an evil character. Dun would have us believe that despite the very rocky road to goodness she more or less arrives on the blissful shores. The journey through these various moral thickets is strewn with constant action and the execution of the suspenseful plot is excellent.

Rating:
Summary: A very solid original story.
Review: Dun's books are either meticulously researched or they seem that way and either is good enough. There are four important characters in this story and a slew of supporting characters. The main characters are Sam the terrorist hunter, Bowden the jungle explorer and ethnobiologist, Devan Gaudet the terrorist for profit, and Benoit Moreau the fallen executive, prisoner, seductress, Machiavellian plotter, wanna be wife and mother. Reading those descriptions it won't take you long to figure which character really interests.

Sam is the usual macho hero with a native American twist which moves him from a C to a B minus. Of course he's trying to help Benoit redeem herself and save the world. Bowden is a solid B because the Amazon stuff and the pharmacology is interesting and it's hard to disassociate him from the jungle intrigue. He's the education wing of the story so you can learn how many medicines come from the jungle and why we should preserve it. Gaudet is a B plus for diabolical, and more or less fits the day's headlines. Then there is Benoit who is an A plus. Benoit and her attempted start over in life permeates the book and its various themes and makes it all click. It's hard to figure whether she's for or against saving the world, is or is not a profligate nymphomaniac, can or can't love anybody, and does or doesn't really want to start over with a clean slate. The pacing is pretty good. Dun goes off on character stuff sometimes and it doesn't work all that well but all in all those are short and thankfully rare. Except for Benoit and the development of her character. Everything he did with Benoit was good and worth the ink. There is a love interest between Bowden and the ex stripper that readers will enjoy. In sum it's a fast paced, unusual story that doesn't quite fit anybody else's mold. Maybe Dun will work a little harder and start a new sub genre.


Rating:
Summary: Great story with an Indian angle
Review: Great story with an Indian angle. I am part native American and like a lot of my friends I was convinced that the Tiloks were an upriver tribe. Every thing sounded so familiar but different. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that they are a fictional tribe created by a blend of various traditions. Dun has done his homework in making up the tribe. The Tilok proverbs although not always believable as native American lore are a kick in the ass. The Spirit Walker concept is cool. The we pac ma thing is based I think on a Weott word and concept. Dun does a great job of throwing a little soft feel good Indian stuff into an otherwise creative story that is as exciting as heck. His writing is inventive and feels real so that it has the basic mind blowing ingredient that we all go for in thrillers. The story moves like a freight train as we follow the duel between a terrorist hunter and his target. The story is complex, the narrative excellent, and the characters clearly drawn. If you want to know the plot read the book. I haven't seen anyone do justice to it yet.

Rating:
Summary: Are our expectations that low?
Review: I can't understand how this book received all these good reviews. A promising storyline shouldn't be enough, should it? The book feels like a blind date with a woman who looks attractive but within first 15 minutes turns out to be a bi-polar mother of 2 ADD kids, whose daddy didn't love her, currently employed as a pet psychic. Too much baggage cluttering the story. The delivery is very anti-climactic, feels like Ben Stein from "The Wonder Years" is reading it in your head. I don't know, maybe I'm a bit spoiled by Crichton, Brown and early Clancy, but read and see for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: great read
Review: My deepest regret is that Benoit Moreau will never appear in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated. Benoit Moreau, who is supposed to be a subsidiary character, makes the book.

Sam is hunting for Devan Gaudet and since Gaudet is hunting Chaperone, an organic molecule, in the Amazon jungle, Sam takes off to the big green. Sam and Gaudet are both converging on a naturalist fellow by the name of Bowden who is due to fall for Sam's foxy assistant an ex-exotic dancer by the name of Grady. Of course Sam has turned her into a junior college student etc..

Gaudet plans on getting Chaperone and then pulling off a nasty scheme called Cordyceps that if successful will gut the US economy and make Gaudet and his investors rich on short positions in the world markets. Benoit has it all figured out and determines that she can make use of this particular convergence of events to get out of jail for good. It's Benoit's plan to crawl from the miry clay of moral bankruptcy into enlightened goodness, or something like that, that is so entertaining. First her situation is impossible; second she has a creative and plausible if complex way out of a long sentence; third she fools everybody especially including the readers; and finally she's really good at getting even. And then there is the usual non-stop Dun action to keep you reading and all those big unanswered questions that are too numerous to articulate in this review. I don't care for the Tilok Indian stuff but it was only a slight distraction. Great read.


Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Entertaining!!!
Review: Sam and Gaudet are each obsessed with ending the other. For Sam it's a job gone personal. Gaudet wants to kill Sam and proceed with Cordyceps his plan to deeply wound the US economy. Sam wants to put Gaudet in a cage and throw away the proverbial key. The interesting part of the story comes from the other people involved in the struggle between the two personalities. Bowden the biologist, who has the secret that everybody wants, independent, rugged, self made, and unaccustomed to fast paced US life. Grady, Bowden's ex stripper girl friend and Sam's girl Friday, that he tries to woo. Benoit Moreau a moxy, misguided, crafty, beautiful, well educated female stuck in a French jail for corporate maneuverings and for using a high tech genetics discovery to make the President of the corporation crazy. The President was mean and raped her so she took his mind and tried to take his company. Having landed in jail she decides that she's made some really bad choices and doesn't want to spend her life there. The story of how she gets out is nothing short of cool. Of course Sam fights Gaudet all the way to the finish and tries to save the US from something worse than 9/11.

Rating:
Summary: the plot will grip you right away.
Review: This book was a real surprise. First off, either the book was not sent to any critics or they were all brain dead when they read it. This is a superlative and I have read nothing about it and always enjoy finding a great story that nobody ever heard of-although judging from the Amazon reviews people are starting to hear about it. There are four tightly woven story lines and the plot will get you in a death grip soon after you get started. Sam the main guy is charged with finding and detaining or destroying a professional terrorist Devan Gaudet. Sam is tough, part Indian, somewhat soulful for the occupation, and struggles with the notion of whether a manhunter can find meaning in life larger than the next target. Gaudet is working to unleash Cordyceps, his plan to take down the financial markets and make billions on short positions for a group of middle eastern big money men. Michael Bowden is a biologist who stumbles on a molecule with amazing pharmaceutical properties and likewise finds Grady a tough cookie ex-stripper to tantalize him. Bowden has learned to learn from the jungle things that might not be learned in a laboratory and a parallel sort of logic might be applied to his relationship with Grady. He's learning things from her in New York and California that he definitely wouldn't learn in the jungle. Benoit Moreau is a fallen woman with a big and very clever plan to free herself from a French prison. The plot is driven by the fact that Gaudet wants Bowden's molecule and Sam's head on a platter before he changes the world with Cordyceps; Sam wants Gaudet and peace for his restless soul; Bowden wants to keep his molecule, catch Grady and get Gaudet off his back; Benoit wants to obtain full release from a French jail, tells us she wants a pardon, but really wants something else. Intriguing us with all manner of twists and turns the plot hurdles toward Cordyceps and the greatest swindle of the century that is Benoit's signature trick. And by the way the swindle couldn't happen to a nicer group of guys-the French government who has made the big mistake of trying to dupe Benoit.

Rating:
Summary: True grit
Review: This story has true grit. Devan Gaudet wants to crumple the US financial markets and steal Michael Bowden's secret molecule that he has taken from the bowels of the Amazon. Sam Wintripp wants to prevent Devan Gaudet's deadly plot, Cordyceps, and put him in a cage for life. Jean-Baptiste Sourriaux wants the nearly priceless molecule for himself and for France. Benoit Moreau wants to be freed from a French jail and conjures a means to get out for good. As these characters and their motives collide the action unfolds with unrelenting suspense. Benoit Moreau fascinates as she weaves her way from Jail to Sam with an unstoppable determination to get to the man she has loved for so long and to find a way to free herself from her sentence. Every man in the story thinks he understands Benoit only to be fooled. Sam finally figures her out, and saves her from Gaudet while he makes a mad dash to save the US from disaster. Dun's latest is fast paced imaginative story telling at its best.