Earn Operation Red Jericho (The Guild Of Specialists, #1) Scripted By Joshua Mowll Kindle

I love it. I love it all.

Pa: What did you love the most

Brontë: Everything, I loved the drawings and the maps, I liked how the maps were drawn, The one that I really loved was the submarine, I love how they were waiting there to attack the fort, to attack the other guys and stuff, I liked it. That's pretty much it.

Pa: That's a short review, Të, You don't have anything else

Brontë: You should go down to the other level and say, "P, S. "

Pa: Okay.

p. s. Love it! The world the author brings us into is fantastic the aesthetic of the book, the illustrations, the foldouts, the exotic lands and the adventure.
It's an adventure you can really immerse yourself in, It's very scientific and meticulous in its detail, like a Jules Verne novel, only with graphics and illustrations,

I kept these books around for long after I read them because of the aesthetic and way the book was made, the overall presentation is great.
It really resonated with me, I cannot speak for anybody else, Found this in great condition at one of my favorite little thrift stores, It wasn't on my radar but it was so cleverly packaged that I couldn't resist, This novel definitely won me over with it's graphic design and the incredibly detailed illustrations, It wasn't until I was halfway in that I realized I was essentially reading a war novel told as a young adult adventure/mystery book.
Another reviewer compared it to the great radio shows of thes and that certainly rings true,
The amount of information and research that went into the world building and the fold out diagrams, maps, and references to real life historical paintings, etc.
made it such a unique read, Unfortunately, the characters are ratherD while the resources areD, which was the only thing keeping it from the ranks of one of my alltime favorites.
As it stands it's still enough of a page turner and so much fun that I will definitely be reading installments two and three in the series.

Young Becca and Doug have been shepherded around various family members since their parents went missing a year ago, Becca isand Doug is, It's Becca's diary that is unearthed upon her death that launches the story, The diary entries are told in first person but then much of the story switches to third person narrative and Doug often takes certain stage, with Becca curiously watching from the sidelines or following his lead, which I found incredibly annoying.
She could have been written as a much stronger character,
I also found the relationship with some of the most fascinating characters their uncle the Captain, Mrs, Ives, the Duchess, Charlie and crew was sorely underdeveloped given how promising these personalities emerged! We are given strong sketches but there's little to flesh out these characters over the course of the book.
It's all action and very little relationship building, which is only saved from being disastrous because the action is told well and at a rapid pace.
There's a secret society that Becca and Doug's parents were likely members of, new elements discovered, a mysterious new form of energy creating international intrigue and power struggles akin to a James Bond villain's nefarious plot for world domination.
Plot points and characters actions and reactions in certain situations are not always believable, Honestly it does feel like a somewhat cheesys radio drama with flimsy characters with exaggerated mannerisms to make up for the lack of substance and warp speed drama to keep the plot moving along so quickly that the audience doesn't have time to stop and wonder if the sequence of events makes any sense.
Given that I tend to love that genre and if you can go in with those expectations, it's a fun ride.
This is book one of a set of three, It's written for young adults and I ended up reading this book because it was suggested for my youngest grandchild, The book does paint some pretty gruesome episodes within it's pages, so was deemed not suitable for kids underor,
I found it a fast read, with plenty of excitement to keep you turning the pages, With sea battles, and hostages, plus a very large tiger, two kids get into lots of trouble while trying to find out what happened to their parents.

I'm caught up into it enough now that I will probable finish the series,
This was a good book, There was a great plot and good characters, and some awesome diagrams and maps, but I really didn't like the writing style.
It was a style that made you just want to skim the entire book so you could finish it, this book was pretty good for a historical fiction, Though they where always using morsee code in it, When I was reading Joshua Mowll's sitelinkOperation Red Jericho to my son, I kept hearing the foley effects, the radio crackle, and the commercials for the Army that accompanied the great radio tales of Lamont Cranston.


"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men"

"The Honourable Guild of Specialists knows, Mwaaaahhaaaahhhaaa!"

It may seem strange that a book published inwould conjure such aural memories in a man born well after the Golden Age age of radio, particularly considering so many of the pleasures of sitelinkOperation Red Jericho are visual, but Mowll's tale contains an innocent simplicity, a nostalgic, war era sissboombah that has intrigued me since I was a boy.
I sought out the great radio shows and eventually went on to write a radio drama, So I am a huge fan of the stories Mowll was paying homage to, and it was refreshing to see someone today going to the roots of the serial adventure rather than simply paying homage to Indiana Jones, itself an homage, and thereby serving up a bland copy of what was once at the core of so many boys' imaginations.


sitelinkOperation Red Jericho gives us something more, Sure it isn't great literature, It's not a mindblowing experience that shouldn't be missed, It's not even widely accessible to today's boys, But it is a heck of a yarn told with love and care, and for those few boys with imaginations that go beyond the television set, sitelinkOperation Red Jericho can be a gateway into comic books, Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, and anything else that turns boys into lifetime readers.


It's not particularly original though it doesn't need to be since it is an homage and the characters are mere archetypes as it should be for the same reason but Mowll takes all the classic pieces of pulpy adventures exotic locales, sadistic madmen, champagne sociopaths, scrappy women, tigers, torture devices and cliffhangers and offers them up in a pretty package full of diagrams, maps, photos, and sketches enough verisimilitude to convince anyyear old boy that the adventures of Douglas and Becca MacKenzie are, indeed, possible and that, at least for one brother and sister duo, they were very real.


Now I have to go out and find us a few episodes of the Shadow, so Miloš can hear what I hear when we're reading sitelinkOperation Red Jericho.
I checked this out entirely for the art design, and it's a beauty physically designed to look like a pocket journal secured by an elastic band, inside there are foldout maps and illustrated schematics, as well as photographs and sketches and journal entries nestled into the text.
Add to that the premise that this is a real story of the author's ancestors, curated in novel form based on carefully maintained archives found within an estate willed to him in an inheritance, you really get the fun feeling of getting to peek inside someone's travel journal.


Alas, the content is of minimal interest to me, Turns out I don't have an appreciation for schematics at ALL, and though the other mixedmedia elements are cool, storywise this seems very much designed foryearolds who love a swashbuckling "kids vs.
bad guys" adventure, and I'm too old for that, And even when I wasn't, spies and ships and Shanghai and secret missions were never really my thing,

I was just interested enough to read the story to the end, so I will probably finish out the trilogy, but was not as enthralled as hoped.
I think for its intended audience, though, it's spectacular, Brad has a great review sitelinkhere explaining what kind of stories "Mowll is paying homage to," which gives both context and insight into whether this one is for you.
This book was truly formative for me as a kid,

First of all, the included schematics, illustrations, and footnotes are amazingly detailed, I was fascinated and halfconvinced the story was really handed down to the author by his greataunt, as the forewards claim.


This book taught me to finally stop misspelling the word "tongue" with the helpful mnemonic: it's like ShengFat's tong, except add a UE at the end.
Helped me out in seventh grade life science class, too, because who can forget that baby ferns are called "croziers" when you associate them with Julius PembletonCrozier I marinated in these books for so long.
I used zoridiumrelated passwords to my online accounts, I pictured a gyrolabe spinning at my center of gravity to help with balancing exercises, It's no accident that I later went through subsequent obsessive phases regarding both Alexander the Great and also atomic physics,

Now that I'm older, Operation Red Jericho is inevitably thinner than I remember it being, The plot is a little less riveting than I remember, but still full ofs conspiracy, dash, and danger, The characters have always been the weakest point, I never cared much for any of them particularly, even as a kid, except for Xu and Xi, They were my favorites, naturally, just because they were members of a secret martial order, Everyone is kind of a caricature the person who comes closest to being real is Doug,

I still enjoyed the experience of rereading, though, and I still believe these books

are honestly pretty unique, If you are a kid or have a kid who is curious, interested in adventure and learning stuff, this is a great series to explore.
It is not in the usual format and I think because of that it took some getting used to, It is a mystery book and I am extremely picky about that genre, . . but honestly, if I were to give my heartfelt description, . . It was pretty awful. This is a good preteen, early teen book, full of chases, escapes, pirates, gunboats and mystical artifacts, The writing itself isn't terribly special, and it commits the sin of having a folksy talkin' character from where else Texas, but at least he doesn't have them utter horrible catchphrases like "Well burn mah' biscuits!" etc.
All in all, if I had had this as ayear old, I would have stayed up all night reading it, and begged my mom for the next one.
Plus it has charts and fold out maps and schematics, which make it even better, .