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MIKE ROBERTS

hydra_bk_2 hydra_bk_1 hydra_bk_3
 
Full Name: Mike Roberts
Nationality: British
Organization: Special Forces Unit
Occupation Agent

Creator: James Jan
Time Span: 2014 - 2015

ABOUT THE SERIES

Mike Roberts is an officer with the British Special Forces Unit.

The SFU is an elite part of the already extremely elite Special Air Squadron (SAS) and Roberts holds the rank of Major when we first meet him.

According to the bio we are given at the beginning of each of the three adventures, he attended Cambridge University and, upon leaving, joined the British Army. It was not long before his skills and drive brought him to the attention of the SAS and its highly rigorous qualifying training. Apparently that was not enough of a challenge for the young man because after just a couple of assignments, he got himself seconded to the SFU.

Several more extremely dangerous missions would go into his record as he continued to show just how good he was, whether in a group or acting solo. From that followed a tour as the Military Attaché at the embassy in Egypt for which he received extensive training in Arabic and from which he made some very useful contacts in the Middle East.

It was around that time that the Foreign Office took note of his abilities and his track record and he was pulled back to London to work closely with the Foreign Secretary. It is there that we find the capable Major Roberts in the first story.

When not in some far-away country fighting enemies of Britain, Roberts can usually be found at home with his wife, Diana, and their two pre-teen children, Mark and Liz. He and Diana enjoy a happy, close relationship and she has to be made of the same stern material her husband is to be able to watch him leave on a mission, knowing just how deadly it is by the wounds he returns with.

BOOKS

Number of Books:3
First Appearance:2014
Last Appearance:2015

1 Hydra 1 - ... A Persisting Evil Hydra 1 - ... A Persisting Evil
Written by James Jan
Copyright: 2014

In stopping a group of terrorists from blowing up four Royal Navy warships, Major Mike Roberts and his team come across an even bigger plan by Al Qaeda to get their hands on Pakistan's nukes. Stopping them will be difficult, more so if Pakistan stands in the way.

2 Hydra 2 - ... Another Two Heads Hydra 2 - ... Another Two Heads
Written by James Jan
Copyright: 2014

In search of a Taliban headquarters in the mountains of east Afghanistan, Mike Roberts and a friend come across something far more interesting - a meeting between al Qaeda and the North Koreans working out a deal to trade nuclear material for grain.
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3 Hydra 3 - ... The Rocket Man Hydra 3 - ... The Rocket Man
Written by James Jan
Copyright: 2015

The weapons expert came from Hamas. The rockets came from Iran as did the ship. The plan was to fire the rockets from the specially converted tanker into Israel. Things go awry and attract the attention of Mike Roberts and his people when Somali pirates grab the tanker and a British scientist onboard.
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MY COMMENTS

Fast, simple but enjoyable adventures, the Mike Roberts tales are a good way to spend a rainy day. They do not spend a lot of time with back story bogging down the action, something I have always appreciated when it is absent. Bad guys are bad for good reasons but you never feel anything other than relief when they are dispatched, and they are done so fairly often.

The series is marked by some as the Hydra Trilogy but the why of that escaped me for a while since the stories take place in three different sections of the Middle East with different adversaries. Then it hit me, after the fact, that the Hydra in this case was terrorism itself and its many heads springing up. Especially the concept of cutting off one head causes two more to grow.

Unless I missed the point altogether.

GRADE

My Grade: B

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