Operation Typhoon Shore, by Joshua Mowell

Summary: Doug and Becca and the rest of th ecrew of the Expedient find themselves stuck on an island after their ship gets damaged by a typhoon on top of whatever damage they had at the end of the last book where they were fighting Sheng-Fat. This might not have been so bad if it weren't for the massive mining operation on the next island over, run by the guy they came to arrest and staffed by 500 or so warriors.

Reaction: A gripping plotline and several "So this is it, they're going to die?" moments make it hard to stop reading. I think if I wrote my comments right after I finished the book I'd have a better time finding things to say. Never mind that it's usually late enough that that's probably a bad idea. Or I could go to bed at a more reasonable hour, finish the book in the morning, and then write my comments. But I want to know what happens and couldn't possibly put the book down for something so ...unnecessary as that. I'm not sure I had enough of an attention span left last night to really appreciate the book.

Operation Red Jericho, by Joshua Mowell

Summary: The short version is that Becca, Doug, their uncle, his crew, Master Aa, and his followers are trying to defeat Sheng-Fat. No, scratch that. They're trying to destroy his store of Zoridium aka Daughter of the Sun. If that means defeating him in the process, so be it. The longer version would mention the Honorable Guild of Specialists and the fact that Becca and Doug were supposed to be headed to San Francisco to live with their aunt after their uncle got tired of their disobendience. It might also mention their sneaking around trying to figure out what their uncle wasn't telling them in hopes that it would give them some idea what happened to their parents, who disappeared in the Sunkiang.

Reflections: I rather like the style of this book--besides the normal narrative, there's also some of Becca's journal entries and Doug's sketches and little bios of some of the characters tucked into the margians and maps of various places and boats and random (relevent) pictures.

Similar stuff: Doug keeps reminding me of a character in some other book that also has a younger brother who asks too many questions and befriends everyone in sight, but I still haven't figured out what book that might be. The second half of the story in general reminded me of most Clive Cussler books, where the characters miraculously escape a whole chain of sudden death situations by a combination of luck and inginuity (which could be why I like them--it's hard to put down a book where you keep thinking that the main character is about to get killed off by the bad guy (or where you would think that if you didn't know that said character returns in the next book. I think at least one of Cussler's books went so far as to have a funeral for the guy before he turned up again in the last page and a half. But I digress.))