The Panjang Incident

By Charles Ryan

Book Overview

ZERO HOUR Deep below the surface of the South Pacific, the U.S. Navy cargo ship Panjanq floated, delicately suspended above the ocean bottom. The ultra-expert diving team of Cas Bonner and Steve... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451158164
• ISBN13: 9780451158161
• Release Date: April 1989
• Publisher: Signet Book
• Length: 399 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Creative and fun

The Panjang Incident is, all things considered, a fairly creative 80s Cold War thriller. A few things rescue this book from being routine: - its unique choice of setting, as much of the action happens in the South Pacific - its novel twist on a standard plot device: the ticking time bomb is in a sunken wreck, over a vast underwater trench - characters that are fun, if not breathtakingly original, particularly the mad colonel of Guadalcanal, Sabbath Spangenberg The plotline is this: a nihilistic terrorist, Alain Dureau, successfully captures an old freighter in the South Pacific, the Panjang, that is transporting twelve Trident warheads. He sets them to detonate in proximity to a global conference taking place on Guadalcanal. At the same time, a Russian computer scientist, observing the US Navy frantically searching for the missing vessel, decides that this is the opening step of an American plan to trigger a war. Our American protagonists are Cas Bonner and Steve Chaffee. Well, Bonner's the real protagonist, since Chaffee is losing his marbles. The two must descend thousands of feet in a mini-sub in order to defuse the bomb. And avert WWIII, in the process. Meanwhile Alain Dureau encounters his nemesis in the fanatical and rather licentious Marine Colonel Sabbath Spangenberg, who pauses from his Bacchanalian schedule to stage a no holds barred manhunt (were there ever to be a film version, I could see Christopher Walken in the role). All of the above boils down to a tense conclusion, with plenty of suspense along the way. Don't wait for the next Cold War to enjoy this fine work of suspense!