n  ”And now, a year and a month later [after 9/11], we are living in a state of perpetual color-coded anxiety. Today is Alert Level Orange. Tomorrow, who knows? For damn sure, it’s not going to be Green again in my lifetime.”n

Before I go into my review, I’d like to say that for whatever reason, this is the book that drew me to the John Corey series. I picked it up a few months back and planned to read it, and then found out that it is Book 4 in a series. Begrudgingly, I put it off and started at Book 1, Plum Island. so needless to say, I have been looking forward to this one. Something about the plot just grabbed me. Also, in the comments I will have a spoiler-hidden comment containing my only gripe with this book, and why I’m giving it 4 stars, instead of 5, which I gave to the last 2 Corey books.

The plot of this one sees John and Kate Corey back in action, this time traveling to the Adirondack Mountains deep in Upstate New York—this is a beautiful, remote, and often overlooked part of the USA, an area larger than the state of New Hampshire that is mostly untapped forest, game land, and hunting lodges. In this novel, it is the home of the Custer Hill Club, a radical right-wing elite group of rich white guys, many of whom are high up in the government. Their true purpose, and that of the owner, Bain Madox, is a mystery, but there are many conspiracies speculating on it. After an agent and friend of John’s disappears while doing some surveillance on the club, Corey and Kate are sent to investigate. As before, hijinks and shenanigans ensue.

This is the first book to take place in a post-9/11 country, and DeMille decides to take a break from Islamic terrorism to give Corey a more domestic assignment-homegrown, right wing loonies; something we have no shortage of here in the US. The threat is real, and while this particular plot was especially far fetched, perhaps the most out there we’ve yet seen from DeMille, the root of it is definitely real and I enjoyed this change of pace for John Corey. Once again, he is a cynical, wise-cracking hero with a smartass one liner ready to go, even when the bullets are flying. John Corey just never gets old for me; I love this character. This may also be the first book that contained virtually nothing misogynistic coming out of Corey’s mouth, which is good. He’s growing!

This books packs the same punch to the gut that DeMille has given us many times before, done in his trademark style. He’s unique, he’s funny, and he knows how to build the tension as good as any author I have ever read. Once again, by the end of this book, nothing short of your hair catching on fire will allow you to put it down; and even then, it’s questionable. The book takes place over the span of only a few days, and starts out in a rapid fire style, alternating viewpoints between the missing agent, Bain Madox, and John Corey. This is done brilliantly and the first 1/4 to 1/3 of the book flies by in what feels like no time at all. The Upstate NY/Adirondack Mountain setting is fantastic, and wonderfully put to paper. It’s especially fun traveling along with John Corey, a die-hard New Yorker and city boy to the core, as he navigates the middle of nowhere. (For those not familiar with the area, New York State is enormous, the largest state in the Northeast by far—the majority of which is rural and completely disconnected from the City of New York, which lies in the extreme southeast corner of the state in a cluster of islands. This book takes place far, far away from the NYC metropolis.)

My complaints come in at the end. Despite the somewhat ridiculous, mustache twirling, full-on Dr. Evil style villain, I had no problem suspending disbelief to become invested in the story. While it wasn’t a terrible ending, things happened awfully fast and I wasn’t totally thrilled with how things played out, and as I said before I will leave specifics hidden in the comments for anyone interested who has read the book. I also have a little bit of an issue with the fate of a character that has been in every book in the series so far, for better or for worse.

Nonetheless, this is still very entertaining and definitely worth the read if you’re keeping up with the adventures of John Corey. Despite this one being the reason I jumped into this series, and the fact that I have been looking forward to it throughout the first 3 books, I believe it falls at the bottom of my list of favorite Corey books. Books 2 and 3 are still my favorites, and I think I prefer Plum Island to this one by knuckle hair. BUT, it is still a fun read, and if you’re a fan of DeMille, it is absolutely worth the time. Next up, it’s time to do battle for a second (and hopefully final) time with Asad Khalil!

A little far-fetched but nonetheless good.

A light and lively romp through the world of John Corey. Kidding! He and Kate have another adventure, this time in rural New York as they try to stop a billionaire megalomaniac who is intent on destroying the world. Nuclear weapons! Evasion of federal authorities! French cuisine! What's not to like as those two rascals wreak mirth and mayhem on an unsuspecting public.

I was really close to leaving this book unfinished.

This is quite a long book, too long I believe. The first 1/3 is dragging on without a reason with tones of unnecessary details and descriptions. But that is not the reason I almost quit this book. The worst of all is the main character, John Corey. Corey is a total clown and moron, constantly throwing jokes that probably should be funny but are not at all. He does not respect anything, including his wife Kate, who for some completely inexplicable reason decided to be with him. Of course, Corey thinks he's a genius, a savior of the world and a super-funny guy who's always right. I could not stand this moron, and what's worse, the narrative is carried out mostly in the first person, from the perspective of Corey. It is a pity that the main character is not Harry who is a much more interesting character than this clown Corey.

Fortunately, the plot moves slightly after the initial longevity and although from now on we are only following Corey and his wife, at least there is some action that will diversify his silly comments and jokes. The plot is not really original, and there is not a bit of surprise in it, because the villain himself explains all the smallest details of his evil plan at the very beginning. Basically everything is based on waiting until Corey, who is not very clever, will come to the right conclusions.

Like I said, it's quite a boring read. I don't think I will read any other book with John Corey.

de Mille introduced John Corey in Plum Island. The Lion’s Game and Night Fall, followed. Corey drives his superiors wild with his off beat sense of humour and inability to follow orders.
The first anniversary of 9/11 passes. The national security level remains heightened, on Orange.
No-one knows that the biggest threat to the USA, and the planet, are a group of highly placed, powerful men who meet at a hunting and fishing lodge. They call themselves the Custer Hill Club. They would like to see the alert status on permanent green. Their leader, and lodge owner, Machiavellian Bain Madox has a plan to accomplish this.
The government know something is going on and send agent Harry Muller out to investigate. Poorly briefed, Muller doesn’t live long enough to share what he has learned about Madox’s plans. He leaves clues which point to billionaire Bain Madox.
Once John Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield know that Muller is missing they head for The Custer Hill Club.
Corey, is a bit too smart mouthed for my taste. But he doesn’t lack courage. Wild Fireis a good holiday read.

Κλασσική αμερικανιά γεμάτη υπερβολές και έναν "μάτσο" εξυπνάκια ήρωα.
Ακόμα και για τα μέσα συγκοινωνίας αποδείχτηκε αδιάφορο.

Foi o primeiro livro de Nelson Demille e da saga de John Corey que li no original inglês e adorei. As piadas e sarcasmo da personagem estavam mais do que presentes, o que torna a leitura muito aprazível. A história foi muito bem desenhada, em torno da teoria da conspiração de um lunático, que resolve bombardear duas cidades americanas com mini-bombas atómicas para que, em retaliação, o governo americano bombardeie várias cidades do Médio Oriente.
Mais uma vez a inteligência e sagacidade de John Corey e da sua mulher/colega do FBI Kate Mayfield livrou-os de uma situação para lá de complicada e potencialmente fatal.

John Corey is his usual witty and sarcastic self in this 4th book in the series. While The Lion's Game and The Lion are still my favorites, I found Wild Fire to be an exciting action-thriller with a pretty scary realistic plot that makes you wonder how much is actually fact vs. fiction.

Great entertainment with some pretty funny dialogue that made for an enjoyable read.

John Corey is a guy I probably would not like if I met him in real life, with his macho attitude, but as a protagonist I absolutely love him. Nelson DeMille writes the climactic scene with such verve that I was reading so fast I was missing details and had to go back and make myself slow down. If you aren't disheartened by the topic of threatened nuclear war (NOT a spoiler - it's mentioned in the summary of the book) and if you like a wise-cracking lead character, I recommend Wild Fire.

A real page turner! I enjoy the John Corey character. I love the suspenseful & humorous way that DeMille writes and how he manages to capture his audience. As for the plot, although it sounds far fetched, it does make you wonder about how the corporate world is tied into politics and the influence it has on government decision making process. Worth a read.

This is another John Corey/Kate Mayfield novel and it was a good one. John’s friend and ATTF partner, Harry Muller is sent (in John’s place) to stake out a large lodge in the Adirondacks called The Custer Hill Club. It’s owned by an oil billionaire with great and powerful connections by the name of Bain Maddox. He catches Harry on his land and kills him after revealing his plans. Maddox has decided to end the Iraqi War before it even starts by nuking two US cities – Los Angeles and San Francisco – and then blaming it on the Iraqis so that we’ll nuke them all to hell in retaliation. He was especially pleased about the Answar Dam, which, when broken, would drown six million people. He thought nothing of killing all those US citizens (to think nothing of the Iraqis), just as long as he got what he wanted. What the hell? He has his own fallout shelter. He was a real bad guy and even put his Russian nuke guy through the woodchipper. I really enjoy these two characters. John is such as wiseass and Kate is such a wife. Not to mention that she’s also a lawyer and FBI, as well as John’s boss. This was very suspenseful and full of action and dialog. It was really kinda scary when you think about all the kooks out there.

What a great premise for a book!

But it turns out to be one long, extended, overwrought, overwritten annoyance.

The whole idea of Wild Fire is that since 9/11, the USA has put the word out to the Muslim extremists that if any WMD is ever used on a U.S. city, that will set off a barrage of nuclear warheads sent at 100 or so cities in the Middle East ... kind of an extension of the balance of power (Mutually Assured Destruction) of the Cold War.

What makes this book fascinating (and gets it the second of two stars) is the way some right-wing wacko in upstate New York plans to set off a couple of nuclear bombs in the U.S. and finger Al Qaeda or the like ... of course, sparking Wild Fire.

But DeMille (way past his prime of Gold Coast) is apparently too full of himself these days to respect the reader enough to write meaningful dialogue. He leans so heavily on this idea for a plot that he forgets to make interesting characters or eye-opening twists (John Corey is a shell of his famous self). Instead, he essentially tells the end in the first 50 pages, and then spends 450 pages showing how we get there, via many weak detours and dead ends -- with no real questions asked or answered along the way. Just an increasingly annoying and frustrating ride.

Here's the good news: I'm glad I read it to remind myself that sometimes you've got to read a few toads to find a princess.