VINCENT ZANDRI - TUNNEL RATS (2018)

 

Synopsis/blurb....

Step aside Rambo, Sam Savage is in town!

For some men and women, the Vietnam War never ended....

Sky Marshal and former Army Ranger Sam Savage has just been handed his most dangerous assignment yet, and it has nothing to do with keeping a plane full of innocent people safe while cruising the friendly skies at 35,000 feet. This time, the sky marshal is on the trail of a New Viet Cong terrorist bent on wreaking havoc on a hotel full of American and Chinese businesspeople. Channy Linn is a new breed Viet Cong in that he's not just leading a band of militant irregulars who are defending their home turf. They are instead a band of terrorists, a la Al Qaeda, bent on the violent destruction of anyone or anything that doesn't follow their twisted ideology.

Along with his field asset, the beautiful but lethal Cindy, Sam will go on the hunt for Channy beginning in Bangkok, Thailand, making their way through Cambodia and finally into the jungles of Vietnam, where Sam will face one of the most terrifying ordeals of his life - being trapped inside the narrow underground tunnels of Cu Chi.

For listeners of Mark Dawson, Boyd Morrison, Lee Child, Russell Blake, and more, New York Times best-selling Thriller Award winning author Vincent Zandri invents yet another action/adventure character who most definitely should not be messed with. This novel promises to keep you glued to your seat for the entire journey.

Enjoyable escapist nonsense........CRAZEEEEEEE!

Fun, fast, frantic, far-fetched and (probably) forgetable. Which isn't to say I wasn't engaged and entertained while listening to another Audible offering.

We have Sam Savage, a sky marshal, out of his comfort zone and pro-active in seeking out a modern day VC terrorist leader. Plenty of banter, action and sex, as Savage gets close to his NVC target. There's the involvement of Cindy, either an alluring ally or a woman playing for the highest bidder, an attack, a chase, an escape - temporary, incarceration in the Cu Chi tunnel network, escape again, a bombing, and a reunion between main man Sam Savage and enemy agent Channy Linn.

It's a busy book. Sam's survival at various points of the novel defies belief, but it's the kind of book where you know the outcome before you start it, so pretty much anything goes. I quite liked the main character, his cheery attitude, his desire to do his job without ever going overboard into full-blown jingoism or patriotism, which sometimes blinds people to their own country's historic errors. He's skilled, adaptable, determined and quite good company for the duration of the book. 

Fast-paced, action driven, not too much introspection though I did like Sam's inner monologue and the dynamics betwen him and Cindy and also his nemesis Channy. Decent narration which added to my enjoyment.

I'm tempted to look up New Viet Cong to see if they are actually an entity and a threat or just a figment of the author's imagination. I've never heard of them before and I'm intrigued. Maybe Zandri's book isn't quite as forgetable as I might once have thought, now I'm pondering elements of the set-up.   

Vincent Zandri is a busy author with over fifty fiction works to his name. I have a few more on the pile, but not the two earlier Sam Savage offerings. I'm interested in reading more from him again, which is as good a recommendation to myself as I can give. 

3.5 from 5

Read - (listened to) November, 2020

Published - 2018

Page count - 244 (3 hrs 3 mins)

Source - Audible purchase

Format - Audible