Next Summer, retired Navy Commander turned political thriller novelist Rick Campbell, known for his Clancy-esque style and plotlines, will release the sixth book in his popular Trident Deception series when Deep Strike hits store shelves on August 18, 2020.
Campbell, one of the most underappreciated writers on the scene today, doesn’t receive nearly enough recognition for the lights-out thrillers he’s been delivering over the last half-decade. Falling somewhere between the Clancy and Larry Bond mold and David Poyer’s more updated style of wargaming, Campbell was writing large-scale attack scenarios that explore what Word War III might one day look like long before Mark Greaney and Rip Rawlings penned their new critically-acclaimed novel Red Metal.
Bottom line: If you’re a fan of any of the writers mentioned above, you have to check out Rick Campbell.
In his last book, Treason, a military coup in Russia lead to a swift invasion of former Soviet territories at a time when the United States military was rendered mostly unable to respond—kicking off an explosive chain of events. In Deep Strike, the Atlantic fleet will suddenly find itself racing to try and stop a Russian submarine that’s racing to launch a missile attack on America’s east coast.
Check out the official plot details and cover art below.
The U.S. Atlantic fleet is in a race to stop a rogue Russian submarine—funded by ISIS—en route to launch a missile attack against the east coast of the U.S.
A shoulder-launched missile attack on a convoy of vehicles leaving the U.N. headquarters in New York kills several diplomats, including the American ambassador. Security footage reveals that the killer behind the attack is a disgraced former special forces operative, Mark Alperi. But before U.S. intelligence operatives can catch up with him, Alperi is already onto the next phase of his plan.
With funding from the nearly shattered ISIS, Alperi plans an attack on the U.S. that will be more devastating than 9/11. He bribes a desperate Russian submarine commander with access to an expensive experimental drug for his daughter who is suffering from a rare disease. In exchange, the Russian commander will take his submarine to the Atlantic Ocean and launch a salvo of missiles at various targets along the East Coast of the United States. The commander lies to his crew that it’s a secret mission, with dummy missiles, for a training exercise. At the same time, unbeknownst to the commander, Alperi has arranged for four of the missile warheads to be replaced with four surplus nuclear warheads and arms them.
When the Russian submarine sinks the U.S. sub that is tracking it, the U.S. military is alarmed. When Intelligence uncovers Alperi’s plot, though, it becomes a race against time—find the Russian sub and sink it before it can launch a devastating nuclear attack.
Rick Campbell, a retired Navy Commander, spent more than twenty years on multiple submarine tours. On his last tour, he was one of the two men whose permission was required to launch the submarine’s nuclear warhead-tipped missiles. Campbell is the author of The Trident Deception, Empire Rising and Ice Station Nautilus, and lives with his family in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
Readers looking to pre-order Deep Strike can now do so here, or anywhere else books are sold.
Praised as “One of the hardest working, most thoughtful, and fairest reviewers out there” by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline, Ryan Steck has “quickly established himself as the authority on mysteries and thrillers” (Author A.J. Tata). Steck also works full-time as a freelance editor and pens a monthly thriller column for CrimeReads. For more information, be sure to follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He currently lives in Southwest Michigan with his wife and their six children.