Title: Deployed
Author: Mel Odom
Pages: 405
Year: 2012
Publisher: Tyndale
Mel
Odom has written a winner in Deployed as his first novel in the new
series titles Called to Serve. For those
who like current military books, this one is definitely for you. This is a modern day story beginning in a
small town in Oklahoma to gain background on some of the characters. Then, the story moves to war-torn
Somalia. There are several characters
and subplots in this book, opening the door for them to perhaps be in a sequel.
Bekah
Shaw has a high school education, works part-time as a waitress and has signed
up for the Marine Reserves to earn extra money to support herself, her son and
her grandmother. Her ex-husband is not
paying child support and claims her son isn’t his, but someone else’s. After trying to help a friend avoid a bar
fight, she is arrested. Soon after she
is released from jail, she receives notification that she has been reactivated
to Mogadishu, Somalia. She hates leaving
her son, but must do so to support them.
She is placed in charge of a small military team that becomes victims of
an ambush. She loses someone she
actually knows in this fight for the first time. She and her team are then sent to safeguard
medicine and doctors to a camp set up outside Mogadishu for refugees. She sees the terrible conditions of the
children, women and men face every day—poor shelter, no food, no medicine,
constant fear of dissidents and/or terrorists.
Her life up to now has been difficult and she feels God doesn’t see
her. While she is here, however, she
begins to remember Bible verses her granny taught her. She talks with one of the doctors who tells
her God has put people in certain places at certain times for specific
reasons. She begins to believe that she
indeed has experienced all she has in her life as God placed her here at this
point in time.
Rageh
Daud has lost everything, but his life.
He grew up under an evil father, who lived as a bandit and pirate. He taught his son everything he knew. Just after his father dies, Rageh goes to
college, graduates, marries and becomes a respectable businessman. Then, Muslim terrorists kill his wife, and
soon after his young son dies from infection.
Rageh suffers wounds and burns in the attack. He is left with nothing so he goes back to
what he knows with the intent on killing as many Muslim terrorists as possible
before they kill him. What ensues is a
battle between Rageh as he tries to gather a small band of followers to help
him rob and kill and the leader of the local Muslim terrorist group. In the midst of this conflict, the Marines
find themselves siding with one group in order to take down the other
group. Rageh has developed a friendship
with a boy from one of the camps, and this boy is taken hostage by the Muslim
terrorist leader. Can he save the boy
before it’s too late?
There
is plenty of action in the battle scenes of this story. The battles are described in such a way as to
appear all too real. The author has
provided an entertaining book that will leave you wanting to read the next
story in the series.
My
rating is 3.5 stars.
Note: I received a
complimentary copy for an honest review of this book. The opinions shared in this review are solely
my responsibility. Other reviews can be
read at http://seekingwithallyurheart.blogspot.com/
. Also follow me on Twitter
@lcjohnson1988, FaceBook at https://www.facebook.com/lisa.johnson.75457
