FRIENDSHIP GAMES by Mark James – Political Thrillers, Middle East, Military Thrillers

Mark James’ latest geopolitical thriller, Friendship Games, brings together a cast of characters that will keep readers glued to their seats.

James’ action-packed novel doesn’t waste a second to deliver espionage, military strategies, and defense, as an urgent question takes center stage: who is responsible for bombing the American aircraft carrier, USS George Bush, in the Persian Gulf?

We begin in Bahrain with twenty-one-year-old Khalid Husseini, a terrorist spy working at the US Naval facility in Manama. He is on his way home to prepare for a birthday night out, courtesy of his American sailor friends, when an explosion rocks the Khawr al Qulay’ah inlet between Muharraq Island and the main Island of Bahrain. Khalid takes it as the sign he’s been waiting for from his Imam, Hussein Salmeen, setting off a series of events the Imam could not stop, even as he wants to with all his being.

Meanwhile, Hector Gonzales is finishing his day at the US Navy base that Khalid just left. Gonzales, Special Warfare Operator Master Chief of Echo Squad, is celebrating a successful interdiction of a Panama-flagged Japanese oil tanker in the Persian Gulf – whose crew could take comfort that it was the Americans, and not Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, or Al-Qaeda, or another Islamist terrorist group who apprehended their ship.

When a bomb hits the George W. Bush the tension literally explodes as Gonzales and Chief Petty Officer Buck Bradshaw assume they are under attack.

Lieutenant Commander Nigel Wood goes into action with Gonzales’s help. Wood, a British/American, Harvard and Oxford grad, Rhodes Scholar, and Navy SEAL, takes charge as commander of Alpha, Bravo, and Echo Squads of the Navy SEALS. He and Gonzales commandeer Logistics Specialist Seaman Apprentice for FSC, Thew Bryson to move much-needed supplies in the crisis. Wood sets Echo Squad on a mission to save the lives of as many survivors as they can from the bombed ship.

In Iran, Rear Admiral Hashemin Ghavam, Commander of Southern Forward Naval Headquarters at Bandar Abbas, gets news of the bombing of the George W. Bush, and is as confused as the Imam, Wood, US President Bell, Thew, and everyone else. The question of who carried out this attack dominates everyone’s minds.

Friendship Games becomes a cautionary tale of what could happen if such an attack took place amidst so much political and military tension.

James brings to life characters from the highest military officers to the lowliest grunts. He does not answer with every detail of this horrific scenario, and as the tale unravels, we meet heroes and cowards and are left to wonder how volatile our position in the Middle East might truly be.

Mark James’ Friendship Games thrusts readers into a potential nuclear confrontation between the US and Iran. This terrifying and thrilling read earns five stars!