Operation Checkmate is the seventh volume in the Earl Drake series. In the first two books in what later became a series, The Name of The Game is Death and Endless Hour, readers were treated to top-notch hardboiled tales of a bank robber who burned his face off in a prison hospital escape and became the Man With No Face. Later novels morphed Drake from the hardest of hardboiled criminals to a reluctant agent for The Company and men's adventure hero with adventures taking him to Cuba and Spain and the Far East. These later novels are for the most part unlike the first two, but are still fun reads.

Operation Checkmate involves Drake, Erikson, redheaded Hazel, and Chen Yi (from Drake's adventures in the Bahamas) in a Cold War battle between Nationalist China and Communist China. It takes Drake from San Francisco to Honolulu to Taipei to Hong Kong and chronologically takes place as Operation Drumfire ends and Drake and Hazel prepare to head back to the ranch. It's a fine adventure story filled with explosions, snipers, home invasions, spies, family secrets, and mystery.
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