Chasing the Storm

by Martin Molsted

[Lianne]

I received a copy of this novel through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme in exchange for an honest review. This review in its entirety was originally posted at caffeinatedlife.net: http://www.caffeinatedlife.net/blog/2014/05/02/review-chasing-the-storm/

What’s really interesting about this novel is that it takes a lot of real-time current events and features them in the plot of the novel: missing ships taken over, corrupt politicians, shady businesses, determined journalists to undercover the truth, hotspot locations around the world fraught with turmoil…It’s also quite a geopolitical chase; one minute they’re in Germany, the next they’re in Russia, then they’re in Egypt. It’s pretty crazy but it keeps the adrenaline of the story going.

I’m not sure what to make of the characters, however. They’re interesting enough, but there wasn’t much hint at the beginning of the novel to indicate that Ryggs' past. It just seemed like such a jump in character between the man the reader meets in the first two chapters and the man the reader follows for the rest of the novel.I may have missed this detail but Marin seemed to be a little too well-off financially to be able to pull off such an investigation.

While appearing seemingly separate from Ryggs and Marin’s storyline, it was interesting to read about what was going on at the ship that the two were investigating and the conditions that they were left to survive in during that tumultuous period.

Nonetheless, for a thriller and a debut novel, Chasing the Storm is a page-turner. I found myself pretty glued to the story after a while, hoping to learn exactly what was going on and whether Dmitri, the character readers follow onboard the ship, will make it.