Books
Larry Bond's fiction centers around military and political conflicts, focusing as much on fast-paced action as on portraying with high accuracy the workings of the military. The list is sorted with the most recent works first, and series are grouped together. Each book cover is linked to the publisher's website, unless it is out of print.
Red Dragon Rising — with Jim de Felice
Watch the Trailer (wmv) • Jim de Felice interviews Larry Bond (wmv)
Red Dragon Rising: Shadows of War
The first of a four-book series that looks into a dangerous future. In 2014, climate change has pushed the world to the boiling point. China faces drought and famine; gas costs $14.39 a gallon in the US, Europe has problems of its own. China sets her sights on food-rich Vietnam, and engineers a casus belli designed to justify her aggression, but Josh McArthur, a climatologist doing field work near the border, escapes the massacre of his research team and finds evidence of another - evidence that would discredit Chinese claims and frustrate their plans. Josh must not only escape the Chinese agents hunting him, but he's in the middle of a fast-moving war that is swallowing the country. Josh needs help, and gets it from several places, but he needs to get his information, and himself, if possible, to safe hands.
Red Dragon Rising: Edge of War
With CIA agent Mara Duncan helping him, Josh McArthur tries to escape the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, and the Chinese agents searching for him, but the war is widening. Other countries are standing with the Chinese "victims," but the US president has received word of Josh's information, and takes measures to slow the Chinese forces until he has the proof in his hands. The US finds itself facing off against Chinese forces at sea, while US officials argue about the cost of a new war to an already crippled economy. The American President knows Vietnam is only the beginning. If China is not stopped, the world will be consumed.
Red Dragon Rising: Shock of War
In the third book in the Red Dragon Rising series, Major Zeus Murphy and Win Christian, under secret orders from the US President, work with the Vietnamese army to delay the Chinese juggernaut rolling down from the north. Wracked by famine, China is invading her southern neighbor both to gain precious foodstuffs and as a first step in conquering all of Asia. Zeus and Christian cobble together desperate plans to buy time, but the often find themselves behind enemy lines and in the thick of the fighting.
In Hanoi, Zeus has found someone to care about, but loses her almost as quickly. He will have to risk everything to save her.
Off the coast of Vietnam, the US Aegis destroyer McLane and her captain, Dirk Silas, face off against a typhoon, as well as superior Chinese forces, frustrating their plans while carefully maintaining American neutrality.
Back in the US, President Greene tries to make the public and Congress understand the danger the distant war represents, but it's hard going against a US mired in a recession and a relentless Chinese propaganda campaign. In the end, he can't even get the Pentagon to support him.
Red Dragon Rising: Blood of War
Available January 22, 2013
Blood of War is the fourth and final book in the Red Dragon Rising Series. In a not-too-different and not-too-distant future, climate change has rearranged crop patterns, triggered water shortages, and ravaged the landscape with extreme weather. Driven by famine, the Chinese offensive into Vietnam is driving farther and farther south, with increasingly desperate measures by the Vietnamese military only slowing their advance, not stopping it.
Josh McArthur, the scientist whose discovery of Chinese atrocities robbed China of her political cover, is still being pursued by Jing Yo, who is determined to punish Josh and Mara Duncan both for their actions against China, and the death of his lover, Hyuen.
As sea, Captain Dirk Silas and USS McLane have to sail on a knife's edge, frustrating Chinese naval ambitions while avoiding open conflict. Although successful in protecting US interests, he faces a more powerful Chinese force in a final showdown.
Zeus Murphy, advising the Vietnamese commanders, has to work not only against the Chinese enemy, but wavering US support, threatening to pull him away from where he is needed most. Using bold action time and again to counter the massive Chinese assault, he risks everything not only for his Vietnamese friends, but his own love, Anna.
The Jerry Mitchell Series — with Chris Carlson
Dangerous Ground
Jerry Mitchell, a fighter pilot grounded by an injury after a crash, fights the Navy’s plan to give him a medical discharge. Instead, he joins the submarine service, and fights to become accepted as a valuable member of the crew.
Along the way, he must deal with exotic and dangerous technology, a hostile captain, an impossible mission, and in the end, a threat nobody had expected.
Cold Choices
New York Times Bestseller
Following the events Jerry Mitchell encountered in Dangerous Ground, the pilot-turned-submarine officer is now a department head, the navigator aboard USS Seawolf. Now on a mission in the Barents Sea, north of Russia, Seawolf explores the sea floor, part of a sophisticated reconnaissance plan that will watch the Russian navy as it trains for battle. Although well outside Russia's territorial waters, Seawolf is ambushed by Russia's newest submarine, Severodvinsk. Although it doesn't fire any weapons, its aggressive new captain, Alexi Petrov, harasses the intruder with dangerously fast, insanely close passes by the American boat. The two subs collide, with the Russian boat crippled and trapped on the bottom. Only Seawolf knows where she is, and the rest of the Russian fleet is too angry to listen. Mitchell and his shipmates have to keep their own damaged boat afloat, figure out a way to make the Russians listen, and keep the trapped Russian submariners alive until they can be saved - if that is even possible.
Exit Plan
Jerry Mitchell is on exercises off the coast of Pakistan when his submarine is ordered to a rendezvous off the Iranian coast. Once there, disembarked SEALs, experts in seaborne commando operations, are to extract two Iranian nationals who have sensitive information on Iran's nuclear weapons program. But while en route, the ASDS minisub suffers a battery fire, killing one crew member and forcing the rest of the occupants, four SEALs and LCDR Mitchell, to scuttle their disabled craft and swim for shore. There they find the two Iranians waiting for them, but their attempts at returning to Michigan are thwarted by heavy Iranian patrol boat activity. When agents of Iran's secret police, VEVAK, appear, escape seems all but possible. As each attempt falls apart, time and options are quickly running out…and when they find themselves surrounded by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp troops, they create a bold plan to escape by sea. It’s a desperate gamble, but it’s the only way to get the proof of the Iranian plot to the US…and prevent a devastating new war.
First Team Series — with Jim de Felice
The First Team
Officially designated the Joint Services Special Demands Project, "The Team" is a unique unit created to address unconventional threats in an unconventional manner, beyond the bureaucratic restraints of either the U.S. intelligence or military establishments. A radical response to perilous times, the Team has never been more needed than this very moment: a quantity of radioactive waste, being shipped across the former Soviet Union, has gone missing. In the wrong hands, the stolen material can be converted into a "dirty bomb" capable of rendering any American city uninhabitable for centuries. With time running out, the Team must locate and neutralize the threat--unaware that their unseen enemy has already chosen a target: the island paradise of Honolulu.
Fires of War
This time the action centers around Korea, when the Team uncovers hidden nuclear weapons in South Korea and a plan for a full-scale nuclear attack that would throw the world into chaos.
Angels of Wrath
A continuation of the First Team series, this new story has the Team hot on the trail of a group of fanatical terrorists out to spark Armageddon in Israel.
Soul of the Assassin
The First Team has been assigned to find a killer, one of the best in the world, who is known only by a code name. Their source says that he has a new target, but they don’t know who the target will be, or where and when it will take place.
As they run down lead after lead, they discover a terror threat that may or may not relate to their killer’s target, but has to be stopped regardless. Any of the players may be the target, and one is almost certainly the killer. Finding the real target and killer almost causes the First Team’s destruction.
Enemy Within
with Pat Larkin
The first wave of a meticulously planned terrorist campaign sponsored by a foreign power has succeeded in driving the United States into civil chaos. As top counter-terrorist teams search for the reason and the source of the savagery, two American agents are hot on the trail of the mastermind. They must find a way to stop the terror king and his hidden forces -- before America wakes up to an even bigger nightmare.
Day of Wrath
with Pat Larkin
The characters from Enemy Within return to face a conspiracy of frightening dimensions. A terrorist leader with ability and millions to spend is smuggling nuclear weapons into the US, enough weapons to cripple the military as well as to kill millions.
Peter Thorn and Helen Gray must investigate a death that seems to lead nowhere, tracking their quarry across Europe and the United States, fighting not only the plotters but traitors in their own ranks.
Cauldron
New York Times Bestseller
with Pat Larkin
Cauldron begins when a financial crisis erupts in Europe and quickly grows out of control, leading to a military confrontation between France and the United States. A new European coalition, led by France, attempts to take military and economic control of Europe, and old allies and enemies realign themselves on the map of post Cold-War Europe.
Vortex
New York Times Bestseller
with Pat Larkin
Before the Liberalization of the 1990s, South Africa was ruled by the Afrikaners, a group of white immigrants that believed in racial harmony through complete separation of the races. They also took measures that ensured that the Afrikaners retained economic and political power.
Vortex tells the story of a reactionary Afrikaner government. Threatened by both international and internal demands to liberalize their rule, instead they try to roll back the clock, triggering a crisis that involves the United States and Cuba in a three-cornered conflict nobody wanted.
Red Phoenix
New York Times Bestseller
with Pat Larkin
North Korea is the only country ruled by a hereditary Communist government. Kim Jong Il, its “Dear Leader,” rules with absolute authority. In spite of its small size and its people’s poverty, the North fields one of the largest armies in Asia, poised to invade neighboring South Korea at any time. The South, buttressed by the United State military, has to be equally ready to defend itself.
In Red Phoenix, a political crisis in both South Korea and America gives Kim the opening he’s been waiting for. He launches an invasion that involves not only the US, but pulls Russia and China into a conflict that engulfs the entire continent of Asia and threatens to become a worldwide conflagration.
Red Storm Rising
New York Times Bestseller
with Tom Clancy
Red Storm Rising, a collaborative effort with Tom Clancy, was the book that started Larry's writing career. It became a runaway New York Times bestseller and one of the best-selling books of the 1980s. It depicts a hypothetical conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, drawing heavily on expert analysis of what such a conflict would be like. It has been used as a text at the Naval War College and similar institutions.
Works in Anthologies
Crash Dive: True Stories of Submarine Combat
Edited by bestselling author Larry Bond, Crash Dive collects the best nonfiction writing about these near-silent killers of the deep and their crews. From the tough Gato class boats that harassed the Japanese Navy during World War II to the cat-and-mouse games played by U.S. and Soviet submarines during the Cold War, Crash Dive will take you inside the deep and deadly world of the military submarine.
Now available in paperback.
The Mighty Fallen: Our Nation's Greatest War Memorials
with f-stop Fitzgerald
The Mighty Fallen is a beautiful, evocative presentation of more than 150 never-before-seen photographs of the nation's greatest monuments and war memorials, along with text that describes the memorials and tells their stories. This extraordinary collection calls attention to the power of memory and the ways in which we immortalize people and events. As Larry Bond notes in the Introduction, "Memories of a war or battle are unpleasant, but few veterans would want them erased." This book is a unique tribute to veterans and a commemoration of some of the most significant conflicts in our history.
"Lashup" in Stephen Coonts' Combat
Lashup is set in (what was in 2000) the near future, 2010, and shows the U.S. dealing with a sudden threat to its GPS satellites by hurriedly fielding its first armed spacecraft.
"Burial at Sea" in Tombs
with Chris Carlson
A nuclear submarine is one of the most deadly and sophisticated weapons ever built. Packed with technology and home to a hundred men, it can be as dangerous to its users as it is to the enemy.
The US Navy plans and trains its submariners to an amazing standard of excellence, anticipating emergencies that have never happened and hopefully never will. But engineering and training can only do so much. In the end, anything built by fallible humans can fail.
"Expert Advice" in David Copperfield's Tales of the Impossible
Larry was invited to write a story for David Copperfield's anthology, with the theme being military deception. In Expert Advice, an American officer has gone rogue and and is using his expertise in US intelligence methods to help an Arab dictator plan a sneak attack against a neighboring country - one that will not only win but cause the loss of thousands of US troops. He has to be stopped, but how do you stop someone who knows all your tricks?