 Willie Meikle has been carving a niche for himself in the horror genre for a good few years, with his unique blend of horror, high adventure and the reworkings of classic universes such as Sherlock Homes and Carnacki. The common thread throughout all of his work is the strong sense and understanding of great storytelling. To use an alliteration Meikle is a master of monsters, mayhem myth and magic. Recently Meikle has turned the focus of his output to the hugely successful exploits of his S-Squad, a crack team of Scottish Soldiers. Who always seem to find themselves in the middle of monsters, mayhem, myth or magic. The S -Squad books are set of lean punchy fun-filled short novels that drop the reader right in the middle of the action, and they refuse to let up until The S-Squad does what they do best. In Operation Amazon, our band of plucky Scotsmen are tasked with investigating the disappearance of a number of employees from a Gold dredging company, operating deep in the bowels of the Amazonian forest. As will easily guess from the cover of the book, that giant snakes are involved in the disappearances, but this is no mere rehashing of that classic big dumb monster movie Anaconda. Instead meikle goes for a more mystical and magical approach with regards to the nature of the giant snakes. Operation Amazon is tightly plotted and executed novel, while it may suffer a little from the short nature of the book with regards to plot development and characterisation, it more than makes up for this with regards to the amount of fun and levels of excitement you will have while reading it. I suspect that the characterisation and character development of the members of S -Squad has been spread out over the course of the series, well for the members that survive each mission, but there is still enough meat on their bones to ensure that they still have just enough sense of believability and character to hold the story together. Thankfully, unlike some novels of this nature, Meikle doesn't waste our time or bore us with massive amounts of exposition or info dumps. The Squad is here to do a mission, and he allows them to carry it out with the minimum of backstory, which helps to keep the narrative rapid, rather than a languid crawl much like the Amazon river. The Squad themselves are a very likeable bunch, world-weary tired and gagging for a pint and a smoke, and despite their moaning always up for the job. The S-Squad's ability to shout out quotes from pop culture ay moments of what should be pure terror gives them an added sense of humanity. Fans of big monsters and ancient legends will relish this well-crafted story, and those of you who aren't fans of them may well find yourself becoming a fan. operation amazon The members of S-Squad are looking for a break from their run of cold climate travails. So when a seemingly simple mission in Amazonia comes their way, they are looking forward to some welcome warmth. What they get is oppressive heat, biting insects, and a dredging operation on the river with a snake problem. A big snake problem. Soon they are in a fight for survival. The old snake gods of the river know the waterways much better than our Scottish squaddies. Are their wits, and bonds of comradeship enough to see them through? One of the premier storytellers of our time - FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND Scotland's Greatest Horror Writer - GINGER NUTS OF HORROR   Comments are closed.
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