It has been a while since I read a Jack Du Brul novel, and, after reading The Lightning Stones, I am trying to figure out what I have been thinking all these years. Du Brul writes excellent adventures, as this one was full of action from start to finish. The Lightning Stones is a globe-spanning rollicking escapade with protagonist Phillip Mercer taking the reader from the mines of Minnesota to suburban Washington, D.C., to the mountains of Afghanistan, back to the U.S., and off to the vast Pacific Ocean. All this globetrotting is framed by the "true" story of what happened on Amelia Earhart's ill-fated attempt to circumnavigate the earth by airplane in 1937. Du Brul connects Earhart's 1937 flight to the present day very well, and his use of the global-warming "conspiracy" in doing so is inspired plotting. What a great story!
The story's hero, Phillip Mercer, makes the story even better. After reading Du Brul's earlier Mercer stories (it has been several years since the last one), I thought that Mercer was an under-appreciated literary action hero. Dirk Pitt, Jack Ryan, and Jack Reacher get a lot more publicity and acclaim, but Mercer is just as heroic, just as dashing, and just as ingenious as those other guys. He is intelligent, daring, and has a keen sense of justice. His job as a geologist allows Du Brul to place Mercer in situations that other heroes could not be in. This story could not happen to Jack Ryan or Reacher, as neither has the scientific acumen to pull off the research and scientific aspects of this story. He is certainly a 21st century action hero.
With a great plot and a great hero, Jack Du Brul has hit a home run with The Lightning Stones. Go check it out soon!
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