Book Review: Power Down (Dewey Andreas #01) by Ben Coes

The most impressive thing about Coes’ full-throttle debut is that the polished work doesn’t read like a first attempt at a novel. I’m sure you know what I mean: compare an author’s tenth book to their first and you’ll realise that much has changed about their writing. 

Coes opens his action-thriller series – if you like Flynn, Thor, Taylor and others, you’ll love this series, too – with a bang, telling the story of shunned former Delta Force operator Andreas, who is scratching out a living as an oil rig roughneck after the deaths of his wife and son. He’s fairly happy doing what he’s doing in anonymity until a terrorist incident (perpetuated by employees who have been embedded, it seems, for years, waiting for their cell to be activated) on the rig he runs forces him back into action.

The attack on Dewey’s rig isn’t the only one – in fact, it’s part of a systematic effort by a well-organised group of Middle Eastern terrorists to cripple America. They aren’t after just a large body count, but also seeking to attack the country where it really hurts. By taking out oil rigs, power stations and the like, they’re well on their way to doing just that.

Enter Andreas, who is pretty upset about the death of his colleagues on the rig, and after revenge. He succeeds in somehow getting off the rig, and must elude capture in Cali, Colombia, and later in Cuba. Making matters worse is that a high-level member of the Washington D.C. interagency team put together to help America survive these attacks is working for the bad guys, and he’s got his own killers trying to silence Dewey, who, the bad guys fear, knows too much and can uncover their plan.

A plan masterminded by Alexander Fortuna, a wealthy New Yorker in the finance game, but also a man of Middle Eastern descent. We soon find out that everything Fortuna has done is towards this day, but his backstory and reasons for orchestrating these attacks is a little different to the usual terrorist head honchos in similar thrillers. Coes’ characterisation is great. You don’t like Fortuna, of course, but you can at least see where he’s coming from, why he’s doing what he’s doing, and appreciate that he just isn’t just another cardboard-cut-out bad guy.

This was a great read – I flew through it in just over five days, because it was hard to put down. Oh, and the epilogue! The epilogue is fantastic, setting up the next story perfectly. An adventure that’ll start in Australia, where Dewey fled to at the end of Power Down.