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The Trident Deception is the 2014 Rick Campbell debut submarine thriller, with the author drawing on his actual Navy submarine-officer career to give the book the kind of insider tactical detail the form rarely manages. The premise is one the genre has used before but Campbell handles with new authority: a US Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine has gone rogue, and the only way to stop it before it launches at Iran is to find it underneath the Pacific.
Campbell's strength in The Trident Deception is the careful submarine procedural detail. The Trident control rooms, the actual physical and emotional rhythms of a submarine crew under stress, and the specific contemporary political backdrop are rendered with the kind of authority that comes from working knowledge. Fans of Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October or Larry Bond's submarine fiction will recognize the careful military-thriller register, with Campbell operating at the highest level of insider credibility.
The closing chapters carry appropriate tension.
Four stars. A genuine submarine-thriller debut. The Trident Deception Rick Campbell novel is the right entry point to his work; readers who connect with this book will find Empire Rising the natural follow-up.
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