The Enigma Dragon: A CATS Tale (The Enigma Series Book 9) - Book Review


Book Review of :  The Enigma Dragon: A CATS Tale (The Enigma Series Book 9)



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Breakfield and Burkey’s novel The Enigma Dragon: A CATS Tale (The Enigma Series Book 9) has all the makings of another award-winning novel for Breakfield and Burkey. 

Some things that stand out in the Enigma series is that Breakfield and Burkey have created a large cast of well-honed characters that inhabit their novels and that the stories revolve around current real-world events. Book 9 largely focuses on North Korea bartering any way they can for oil and uranium.

Villainous Islamist powers have what Pyongyang seeks, oil, however, they are unable to sell it because of the sanctions against them. A powerful company, ePetro, headed by middle-aged Marge Barger along with her lieutenant Mike Patrick see this situation as a lucrative business opportunity. They scoff at international laws and have been very successful in skirting them for numerous years. They decide to play the perilous game of middle man between the two and hiding their dealings by using Analog Information Mules, AIMs, to facilitate “going dark” They have developed ways of keeping their digital signature clean of these transactions.

Breakfield and Burkey also love acronyms; they have AIMs, CATS, ICABOD, PIMP, DEATAC and a bevy of the Government’s alphabet guys (FBI, CIA, ETC).

The members of the good guys’ team known as CATS pair up in this fast moving techno-thriller in an effort to take care of a deluge of spook business that challenges their resources. Is it time to add a few more members to the CATs team?

We meet the team members in their secure compound. Julie and Juan are married with twins and they co-run the Team. In this book of the series, the situation forced them to be separated with Julie sent off to London. Breakfield and Burkey demonstrate that their characters have feelings as depicted in this parting scene between Julie and Juan:
Julie mushed into Juan and, after a passionate kiss, quickly pulled away and hopped out of bed. She raced to the shower with Juan hot on her heels. They cleaned up after steaming up the mirrors in the bathroom even further. Julie dressed and finished her packing. Juan carried her suitcase as they walked outside to the waiting car.

One more passionate kiss and Julie entered the car for transport to the airport. As the cab pulled away, a stray tear got away from her eye before she could trap it.

 

 

Additionally, on the good guys’ side are newly married EZ and Quip. Quip is a hotshot computer jockey with a wicked cool supercomputer ICABOD (think Jarvis from Marvels Ironman movie series) and EZ is a coms specialist pressed into service to help locate missing team members. Just like all newlyweds, they are up for steamy sex at a moment’s notice. Breakfield and Burkey use EZ and Quip’s passion as a bit of comic relief; you just have to read it, it’s funny. Then there is Summit a self-confessed neat freak and his partner George who are not afraid to hop aboard a tanker, visit the Far East following clues taking them to Istanbul.  Ernesto and Tyler spend their time as tails following Jane 1 and 2 across the US. They get a call from an individual named Jamie who proves to be a proverbial lightning rod for bad luck. He had stumbled into something bad and as it turns out becomes the newest member of the team. Mercedes, one tough chick and easy on the eyes, pairs up with Brayson, the master of the kiss assault for undercover surveillance who's still getting over the loss of his love. They hop over to South America sniffing out an analog input off-line datacenter in the middle of a rainforest.

In the first few chapters, we find intrigue; the authors give us layers of espionage adventures stacked neatly one on top of another. Breakfield and Burkey provide the reader just enough of the series back stories to make it unnecessary to read the prior books to appreciate and understand this slice of the series. Can the CATs team prevent the delivery of oil and uranium to North Korea?  Does ePetro stay undetected and unstopped by the authorities? How many of the CATs team come out alive in this episode of the Enigma Series?

 It is easy to see why Breakfield and Burkey are award-winning authors they seem to have the formula for success. Get hooked on the Enigma Series and find out how this thriller ends, get your copy of The Enigma Dragon: A CATS Tale (The Enigma Series Book 9)


About Charles V. Breakfield & Roxanne E. Burkey


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Breakfield writes with his co-author Rox Burkey. Together they write The Enigma Series and multiple short stories in various genres. Charles is a technologist who specializes in network connectivity, security and leading edge technology integrations. Charles' love of wine tastings, cooking, and Harley riding has found ways into the stories. As a child he moved often because of his father's military career, which even now helps him with the various character perspectives he helps bring to life in the series. He continues to try to teach Burkey humor. Burkey works as a business architect who builds solutions for customers on a good technology foundation. She has written many technology papers and white papers but finds the freedom of writing fiction a lot more fun. As a child she helped to lead the kids with exciting new adventures built on make believe characters, was a Girl Scout until high school, and contributed to the community as a young member of a Head Start program. Rox enjoys family, learning, listening to people, travel, outdoor activities, sewing, cooking, and thinking about how to diversify the series. Breakfield and Burkey started writing non-fictional papers and books, but it wasn't nearly as fun as writing fictional stories. They found it interesting to use the aspects of technology that people are incorporating into their daily lives more and more as a perfect way to create a good guy/bad guy story with elements of travel to the various places they have visited, either professionally and personally, humor, romance, intrigue, suspense, and a spirited way to remember people who have crossed paths with them. They love to talk about their stories with private and public book readings. Burkey is also conducting regular radio interviews with other authors, which is interesting. Her first interview was, wait for it, Breakfield. You can often find them at local book fairs or other family oriented events. The original series is based on a family organization called R-Group. Recently Breakfield and Burkey spawned a subgroup that contains some of the original characters as the Cyber Assassins Technology Services (CATS) team. The authors have ideas for continuing the series in both of these tracks. They track the more than 150 characters on a spreadsheet, with a hidden avenue for the future coined The Enigma Chronicles tagged in some portions of the stories. Fan reviews seem to frequently suggest that these would make good television or movie stories, so the possibilities appear endless, just like their ideas for new stories. They have completed book video trailers for each of the stories, which can be viewed on YouTube, Amazon's Authors page, or on their website, www.EnigmaBookSeries.com. Their website is routinely updated with new interviews, answers to readers' questions, book trailers, and contests. You may also find it fascinating to check out the fun acronyms they create for the stories but summarize on their website. Reach out to them at Authors@EnigmaSeries. com, Twitter @EnigmaSeries, or Facebook @TheEnigmaSeries.





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