My REVIEW:
Lets start with what I love. The Cover! This cover left me really wondering, “What the heck is this going to be about?” A helicopter traveling over the water. The sky a bit grey, like a storm is brewing, but further past is brighter skies. Was this a metaphor? Is the ‘c’ in ocean an Arabian Saber? What does that symbolize? And to literally put the cherry on top, the word “FEAR” is in read.. I was ready for the tackle. When I entered my kindle version of the book and saw 78 chapters, I almost ran scared. But realized the book was only 292 pages.. whew.
We meet the Baxter Cruise. He is a handsome student that makes the lady’s head turn. He is super smart, a robotics engineering student. He has a business that is very lucrative, although very sketchy. In his mind life is good. Then in a matter of days, his assumption of life really takes a nose dive.
His mentoring professor is missing, which really upsets Baxter. But then Baxter finds a dead professor, with this find he gets an unexpected introduction to the beautiful FBI agent, Claudia Seagal with questions about his recent discovery. Did I mention that Baxter is in the line of work of sketchy? Ok, it is technically illegal, but its so small of a thing, right? And to add more to Baxter's plate, he now has gotten involved with a drug cartel!!!
Illegal job + dead professor + missing professor + FBI Agent + Drug Cartel = Baxter Cruise nose deep into some mess with only a spoon to shovel out!
For Baxter this is where life changes everything he knows and thinks he knows. Dramatically! And where on earth is his mentor at?
Author Helen Hanson gives the reader an action packed book with several different points of view, this I love. I think the helicopter on the cover is a great metaphor for the up, down and bumpy ride Hanson gives her readers. She makes her readers need to eagerly turn each page to find answers AND then when the reader thinks its figured out, Hanson throws a curve ball.
That’s what a thriller is about. The unknown, the “what the heck?” questions, the sit on the edge of your seat with your eyes bulging, not believing what’s going on moments.
This book is without a doubt, a HOT - Page Turner
Helen Hanson ARC from author for honest review. Very interesting, although I did start to skim read, it felt too long. Enjoyed the story though, I wouldn't have thought of that in a million years. Someone who actually enjoys spam since he makes good money off it. Ms. Hanson does a good job explaining things but doesn't push it into unrealism. Unfortunately, this could happen which just makes it scarier because we have to depend on someone making the right choice and not everyone is wired that way. I'll be reading more of Ms. Hanson's work because she can tell a believable story. Helen Hanson Baxter Cruise is a graduate student in robotics and computer technology who is just cruising through life. Instead of focusing on getting his higher degree, working with his mentor, Professor Sydney Mantis, he’s up to his eyeballs in an illegal computer spamming scheme that allows him to live a life where money flows through his hands like water. One day, when Mantis gives him a thumb drive to deliver to the cold-fish robotics professor, Alessandra Bisch, his life changes forever. Baxter finds Bisch shot to death in her office and himself caught in the cross hairs of a deadly assassin for a drug cartel, and a ‘person of interest’ to both the FBI and CIA.
Ocean of Fear by Helen Hanson is a fast-paced techno-thriller that provides just enough technology (thankfully, without all the techno jargon) to keep geeks interested, and enough thrills and chills to keep you turning the pages. In places, the author mixes up tenses a bit, but not so much that it makes you want to stop reading, and you’ll find yourself sympathizing for Baxter as he tries to work his way out of a no-win situation.
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review.
Helen Hanson Baxter (Bax) Cruise a student at UC Santa Cruz was lounging at Whitney’s coffee bar waiting for Professor Sydney (Syd) Mantis. He wanted Bax to take an important flash drive to Professor Alessandra Bisch Ph.D. (The Bisch). Natalie was Bax’s G/F & lived with him. She later gets a place of her own, Pete is her B/F. Konos is Bax’s robot.
When Bax arrived he found Professor Ph.D. Alessandra Bisch (The Bisch) dead. She was married once to Luis Berbera (a.k.a. Marco Bisch, Colombian crime family), Ruben Galda’s rival. The flash drive contained the information on the test results (project) she was working on. The Department of Defense also funded several DARPA projects at the university. The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department soon arrived. Lieutenant Truett interviews Baxter. He didn’t exactly tell him the truth “…robotics competition.”
Ruben Galda (aka Jim) was out jogging & on/in his possession was a Ruger Mark III with a Gemtech suppressor. He had also retrieved all the listening devices from her office. He was waiting a call from his boss Elias Malvidas. Professor Sydney (Syd) Mantis needed to be found. His brother was Lamar.
Special Agent Claudia Seagal (FBI) had heard about the Galda case. Her B/F Ravi had been brutally murdered in Mazatlan. President Hugo Chavez oversaw the drug cartel operations in Maracaibo, Venezuela. El Capitain’ Ruben Galda was part of the crime family who specialized in human trafficking, drugs, murder for hire & kidnapping foreigners for ransom just to name a few. The FBI had also been concerned about the ongoing feud with their rival the Ramon Berbera syndicate of Maicao, Colombia. Ruben Galda is wanted for ? in the murder of Martin Berbera. Luis Berbera is also a family member.
Ruben Galda next stop was Professor Sydney (Syd) Mantis house. He also put cameras in the house. Professor Syd liked to dabble in hallucinogenics. Bax had showed up to feed the dog Trudy.
Corey had purchased a prepaid cell from Vicky Tanaka (Safeway). Special Agent Claudia Seagal (FBI) wanted to know why, & look at the film from the store cameras. Lieutenant John Truett gave her a copy of the preliminary police report. Dr. Frederick Patton was doing the autopsy. Professor Ph.D. Alessandra Bisch (The Bisch) had made the call to report Ruben Galda was in Santa Cruz. What is the Lebanese leader Ziyad Bezzedin wanting to buy?
Who really killed Professor Alessandra Bisch Ph.D. (The Bisch)? What is the code on the note about that Poppy Fields gave Baxter Cruise? What is on the flash drive everyone is looking for? Will this mind bobbling case get solved? Will Ruben Galda finally get brought to justice? What happened to Professor Sydney (Syd) Mantis Ph.D.? Will all the UC Santa Cruz students finish their dissertations & get their Ph.D.’s. Will Special Agent Claudia Seagal (FBI) find a new love in her life? Who are the real criminal’s in this crime caper?
Cool book cover. What I loved about this book, is most everyone had nicknames like in my world I give those close to me nicknames. A great crime caper, suspense, mystery filled book. Even Konos the robot (Kalman filters). Middle eastern historical politics too. Easy to read/follow. Never a dull moment. No grammar errors, or out of sequence sentences. Quite the unique set of characters. I think there were a lot of chapters that could be eliminated, I call them fillers (condensed). Could be a movie. Still, I will gladly give the book 5 stars.
Thank you for the free book
Tony Parsons MSW
Helen Hanson This techno thriller has a great story premise, but there's too much that needs correction before any serious, or critical reader can finish it without scratching their head.
The author often uses words or expressions that are just off the mark.
Like crank on instead of crank up. He wended his way (really?) and putted up (eh? I have no idea what verb this is supposed to be, but the author uses is on more than one occasion to convey movement, however to putt is a golf term and has nothing to do with travelling at any speed) the Empire Grade.
It gets even weirder. Bikes and backpacks bumped uphill on their own. There is the closing of the sun (sunset). She gives Lidocaine (which should not be written with a capital since it is not a proper noun) time to make magic. Just a few examples.
But then there's the unbelievable things, things that make you think, Hold on. Like the fact a character needs to chirp (?) his car alarm and trail the sound to find his ride. Can't he remember where he parked his car? Or silence spontaneously followed news, but the listeners are already silent while listening to the recap. However the news brought them back to discussion. Eh? As far as I've read there was no discussion, one told his version of the events and the others listened, in silence. But anyway then Baxter continued with the story. I'm pretty sure he wasn't interrupted in the first place.
Then there is the matter of punctuation and choice of words that is often off and combined with an overuse of the word that. To be honest more than once I thought there was a funny choice of words like when the mc stretched out a quaking hand. Why use fancy words to try and show me his hands trembled?
But then the story got me and lost me again when inconsistencies kept popping up such as, without going into detail, a person being with someone at one point and then a witness saying she hasn't seen that person for a while. The witness is an unimportant character and has no reason to lie. After fifty minutes of testing they stop the test, yet a few paragraphs later it's suddenly turned into two hours of testing. Which was the original plan, but like mentioned the test was broken of after fifty minutes.
And later on a character leaves on a very silent boat only to suddenly be back waiting for another at a rowboat, one the rescue team had no prior knowledge of. However a chapter later it is made to seem as if it had been the plan al along. It is plot hole repair at its worse.
Plus the occasional tense shift and usage of filters pulled me out off the story.
Yet, the novel as a whole was compelling enough to want to know more, so I kept reading. Like I said, great story premise, enough tension, at moments very well written, if only there hadn't been the separate issues that could have been solved before publication. I suspect another round of editing by a pro would have made this novel shine like it should have. Helen Hanson
review Ocean of Fear
Meet Baxter Cruise. Gifted robotics student. Spammer for hire.
A six-figure income softens the loss of his family while he attends college. But his cozy world of lattes and free wi-fi explodes when his hippie professor friend disappears, and Baxter discovers a lady professor's steaming corpse.
With his secretive lifestyle, he hasn't cultivated any real friends. When a student asks for help with a class assignment, Baxter figures it'll throttle his funk. But the guy blackmails Baxter into programming narcotics delivery robots for a notorious cartel. Working for drug lords rattles the needle on Baxter's errant moral compass, but it's better than a bullet in the head.
Beautiful FBI agent Claudia Seagal tracks the professor's brutal assassin, but every angle of her investigation returns to Baxter. He's hiding something, and he’s in far too deep to cooperate with the law.
Hijacked from the comforts of his ivory tower, Baxter lives under constant surveillance. The cartel is in bed with dangerous allies, and they require his unique talent to complete their underwater robots. After that, Baxter is expendable.
With no one left in the world who cares about him, only survival matters. When he realizes the depravity of his involvement, it’s too late for remorse. Baxter just wants to go home. It’s not his war.
But he’s the only one who can stop it. Ocean of Fear
4 stars. Originally posted on
*E-book copy provided by author in exchange for an honest review.
I tried to analyze in my mind what it is exactly that keeps me going back to Ocean of Fear. Whenever I take a break, my Nook is the first one I grab so I can spend an hour continuing on with the story. Sometimes, a book just has this inexplicable pull on me, even though I can't pinpoint what it is exactly that keeps luring me back.
Then, while writing this review, I finally got it.
Baxter Cruise is this beautiful character with such a tragic background story, and his failings and reactions made it easy for me to relate to him. No, I'm not a gifted robotics student, nor am I a spammer-for-hire, and I'm definitely not a blonde Apollo. I mean, his character expressed doubt if he's been truly been loved by his girlfriend, and even by his family. He also kept wondering if he can still make up for the huge mistakes he did in. At the same time, he also wondered if he ever really loved his ex. Now, I don't know about you, but these are questions that have popped up in my mind about eight years ago (oops, there goes my age). Aside from this characterization of humanness and deviation from the usual perfect, can-do-no-wrong character espoused by most authors, I was also able to relate to his choosing to do the right thing in the end, no matter the risk it posed to his life.
The book's location transferred from the US to Venezuela, which really excited me. I was once a delegate to the Model United Nations Assembly (MUNA) in the Philippines in 2009, and my friend Kinah and I represented Venezuela. We had to study the country and its politics quite a bit, and seeing it in fiction was very interesting for me. Plus, I welcomed the deviation from the usual countries picked in crime/terrorism books. Helen Hanson's description of the place was not overly vivid, but detailed enough for my imagination to draw the place in my mind, which helped in my enjoyment of the story.
I love books about crime-fighting and technology, so despite my TBR pile teeming with more popular (and long-awaited) books, Ocean of Fear sustained my interest. While it's not a stellar, oh-boy-you-have-to-read-this book, I never felt that I was just pushing myself to finish it. However, in the few chapters near to the ending, I felt like it was not as thoroughly edited or developed. I noticed some a palpable spelling mistake (trough vs through, which is really not the same thing!), and some actions were not justified or explained. For example, Galda did not even ask how Baxter got to the boat where he was in, or how Baxter found them, or where Baxter got the money to pay for a cab to get to the pier. Galda only asked for Baxter's honesty, but I felt that that was an insufficient question.
One that felt a little cliched in the story is that the villains (and even other characters such as Syd, or Natalie), had no redeeming quality at all. The villains were depicted as bad through and through, and the only one whose character grew throughout the story was Baxter. I felt that it was too one-sided or too favorable towards Baxter so it felt a little unbalanced. Despite the presence of other supporting characters, no one else was as thoroughly described. The tragic story of FBI agent Claudia was too repetitive and was the only real story she had to her. Furthermore, she was attracted to Baxter mainly for his looks and because she felt a kinship with him due to their tragic lives.
Overall, Ocean of Fear has action, a good plot, and a good characterization of its hero. I did enjoy reading it, and while it doesn't have that ass-kicking action that is typical in crime books, it has enough charm to appeal to fans of the genre. If you want to give it a go, it is currently available in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes.
Helen Hanson This was a great FBI CIA high intensity read. I really enjoyed it and couldn't put it down. I'm looking forward to reading more of her books. Helen Hanson Wish there was a 4.5 star option, but since there isn't I'm rounding up to 5. I love a good FBI thriller, and that is what this is. There is apparently a crossover series related to the CIA (who does play a part in this book), but I haven't read those. You don't need to, though. This book is perfectly paced - an edge of your seat ride from the beginning. At almost 10 hours long, the characters and plot have a chance to develop. There are some twists (I won't give anything away), and the resolution was very satisfying. I can hardly wait for another installment of this series. It kept me entertained through some long, boring days.
The narration is very good. Each character has distinct voices, the dialog is realistic, and the pacing and voice inflections are great. I enjoyed reading along on my Kindle since this is part of the unlimited plan, and that allowed me to immerse myself even more fully into the storyline. I would definitely recommend either one to fans of this type of book.
I voluntarily reviewed this audiobook from a copy supplied at no charge by the author. Helen Hanson A geeky thriller that I could not put down
Author Helen Hanson describes her writing as “thrillers for geeks.”
There’s a certain geek factor in all thrillers. Many thriller authors write loving descriptions of cars, guns, bullets, bombs, or bullets. I have read several descriptions by different authors about how a bullet bounces around inside a skull and precisely what it does to a human brain.
But I actually enjoyed the geek factor in Ocean of Fear. Hanson made the geeky-technical aspects integral not only to the plot, but also to one of the main characters.
What makes a good thriller?
To make a thrill, an author needs to build tension. The readers have to care enough about the characters and believe the situation enough to say “Oh no, don’t do that! You shouldn’t have done that!”
When the tension snaps, the author has to surprise you. It’s not a thrill when you know what’s going to happen
There are a lot of those moments in Ocean of Fear.
Plot points
Like any good thriller, Ocean of Fear begins with a murder. Baxter Cruise (character names are not this author’s strong suit), a grad-school dropout turned email spammer, discovers UC Santa Cruz professor, Dr. Allesandra Bisch, dead in her office. Baxter’s employer, Professor Sydney Mantis, had given Baxter a flash drive and asked him to give it personally to Dr. Bisch, as well as to look after his, Mantis’s dog while he suddenly had to leave town for a few days.
The mystery is not who killed Dr. Bisch — the author introduces the assassin in Chapter 2. The mystery is why, and the tension rises as the main investigator, FBI Special Agent Claudia Seagal, puts the pieces of the puzzle together, and as Baxter gets pulled deeper and deeper into the trap laid for Dr. Mantis.
Hanson knows how to ramp up a story by taking it in unexpected directions. It turns out that the professors, Bisch and Mantis, were developing robotic submarines for drug dealers to use to smuggle their product into the US. Special Agent Seagal. This is the geek factor: Hanson tells us enough about robotics and remote control to make the story work, so that we understand that this story just could not happen without this technical detail. However, she never gives too much, never bores us with technical factoids that we don’t need. Every word is a plot point.
Engaging and critical backstories
Despite their unfortunate names, the characters have interesting backstories. Hanson is also skilled at not drowning the reader in long information dumps, but revealing details about Claudia’s deceased husband, Baxter’s dead parents, Mantis’s habit of seducing students, even the bad guys’ back stories as they’re needed. Readers begin to feel for the characters, to hope that their plans work out. The sibling rivalry between the two main baddies really rang true.
Two weaknesses
There are only two weaknesses with this story. First, there are the character names. The author shows us in Chapter 1 that “Dr. Bisch” is an intentional joke, but then there are all the animal names: Dr. Mantis, Agent Seagall. I don’t know if this was an intentional gag, but while there are some humorous moments in the book, it’s not overall a comedy. It’s a thriller that takes engaging, believable characters on an exhilarating ride to an explosive and satisfying conclusion.
The other weakness was the cover. It’s professionally done, but maybe a little too clichéd. It gave away too much of the story, instead of making me want to open the book.
But those are minor flaws. In the end, Ocean of Fear is a good, satisfying read from a skilled author.
4 *.
Helen Hanson The Cruise FBI Thriller Series Book #1
This was one of those books lost in a huge pile of books to read that finally got at the top of my reading list…why did I take so long to get to it? This was one spellbinding story I simply couldn’t put down. Although this author has written numerous novels this is my first experience reading her and she is definitely on my radar from now on.
In “Ocean of Fear” we meet Baxter Cruise, a spammer and loner with a six figure income. When he becomes an easy target for blackmail and falls into the hands of a notorious cartel boss wanting his expertise in programming… is life takes a drastic turn for the worst. Murders and mayhem takes center stage and all hell breaks out. Soon we meet FBI agent Claudia Seagal sent to investigate but as she digs deeper all angles points to Baxter. What did he got himself into?.... That is when the excitement begins and this story becomes a nail biting drama.
This story takes numerous of unexpected directions and brings enough geek factors about robotics forward to make not only the story captivating but also interesting. The author did an excellent job with the technical details without over doing it. The narration and dialog are good and each character has a clever voice. Of course we can always fine faults. If any I definitely overlooked them and enjoyed every bit of this fast pace and exciting page turner.
This is one cool adventure I enjoyed passing time with.
Helen Hanson