Student Book Review:


Torchlight

by: Robert Louis Stevenson III


Review done by:

 Alexander Lott
Grade 7
Van Antwerp Middle School
Niskayuna, NY

The best book I read this year was Torchlight, by Robert Louis Stevenson's grandson. This is a very new book. It is an action-packed spy novel with many dramatic and sometimes bloody scenes. If you like adventure and big guns, this is the book for you.
This book takes place in present day. There is a man named Gerhardt who is an illegal arms dealer. His plan now is to buy nuclear weapons from the Russians and sell them to the Iraqis for a higher price and he is going to make a lot of money from it. But, he needs money to buy the nuclear weapons in the first place. So, he hears about a boat that sunk during WW I with $1 billion of gold in it. He hires the best SCUBA divers in the world, Phillip Drake and Jack Henderson, to come and bring it up for him so he can go through with his deal. But, if the Iraqis have nuclear weapons than they will be a world threat. So, the CIA plans to stop him before he goes through with the deal. So, they tell the divers to spy on him. This is called operation: TORCHLIGHT. But, for some reason, the President wants to shut down TORCHLIGHT. So, he decides to bomb a building in Jamaica for two reasons; one, is to take the media's eyes off TORCHLIGHT so he can shut in down. The other thing he will do is make it look like Mauranian terrorists and then he will have a reason to invade Maurania and if he gets rid of Mauranian terrorisim than he will probably get reelected.
However, many things go wrong in this book. One of the things that go wrong is that the person who is supposed to blow up a Jamaican building goes crazy. Also, Gerhardt finds out that the divers are spying on him.
This book had a very complicated plot and a lot of characters. So, if you can't read very well, you might not want to read this. However it is still a terrific book.
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