Larry Bond's Red Dragon Rising: Shock of War (Red Dragon Series, 3)
Red Dragon Rising • Book 3
by Jim DeFelice Larry Bond, Jim DeFelice
Why You'll Love This
A rogue Army major disobeys direct orders to stop a Chinese tank column — and drags a psychologically unraveling officer with him.
- Great if you want: near-future military thriller with geopolitical stakes that feel plausible
- The experience: fast-moving and tense, toggling between battlefield chaos and political deadlock
- The writing: Bond and DeFelice layer tactical detail without losing human stakes
- Skip if: you haven't read books one and two — continuity matters here
About This Book
In a near-future Asia on the brink of catastrophe, Major Zeus Murphy is running out of room to maneuver — behind enemy lines, outgunned, and defying direct orders for reasons that are equal parts strategic conviction and personal loyalty. The Chinese war machine is rolling into Vietnam, and back in Washington, the warnings of those who see the larger danger keep hitting walls of bureaucratic inertia. Larry Bond and Jim DeFelice have built a thriller where the personal and geopolitical are impossible to separate, and where every decision — military, political, romantic — carries weight that compounds across pages.
What distinguishes this third installment is how confidently it balances scale. The authors move between boardrooms, battlefields, and the desperate calculus of two soldiers making choices no one sanctioned, and the pacing never loses tension in the transitions. Bond brings genuine military architecture to the hardware and tactics, while DeFelice keeps the human stakes viscerally grounded. The result is a series entry that rewards readers who've been tracking the larger arc while remaining propulsive enough to hold anyone willing to jump in here.
