Operation Mongolia by William Meikle

Operation Mongolia by William Meikle
Publisher: Severed Press
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Action/Adventure
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by Fern

It’s supposed to be a routine job, walking a pair of stranded archaeologists out of the Gobi Desert.

But when the rains come unexpectedly, S-Squad’s troubles are only starting.

There is something in the sand, something red and wriggling.

Thirsty for water.

Hungry for flesh.

When Captain Banks and his team of squaddies are told to head over to the Gobi Desert and collect two archaeologists stranded with Chinese Rebels nearby the entire team hopes they will finally have a simple, regular assignment. And all is going well, initially. They meet up with the two boffins, the squad is ready for the long walk out of the desert to their rendezvous point with a helicopter. Everything is all sorted out. Only then the rains hit and something red, wriggling and with plenty of teeth is waiting for them under the sand – and these critters are thirsty.

I absolutely love this series and am eagerly working my way through them all. They are quite short stories – about 130 pages each or so – but filled with oversized, B-grade monsters, the squaddies are believable, utterly ribald and a bunch of laughs, and usually the plot isn’t overly complicated. I find them wonderful escape fiction when work or life is dragging me down a bit. If you want something deeply plotted, or with a complex puzzle then this isn’t the series you’ll want to grab. If you’re in the mood for something lighthearted with plenty of shoot ‘em up style, a few crass and tasteless jokes and banter with a whole bunch of action and big monster sized beasties – this will suit you perfectly.

I do like how a number of the squaddies are now becoming quite familiar. These books can all absolutely be read independently of each other – and in virtually any order – though I did notice there were a few single sentence long Easter Eggs recalling previous adventures in a few places that really made me chuckle. I found personally it really added a nice zing to the story for me, but I absolutely feel readers who find this book by itself should be very happy to crack it open and give it a try having not read anything previously by this author.

A rambunctious and fun read, this was a lovely lazy afternoon I feel was very well spent. Recommended.