FFB: Balefire by Kenneth W. Goddard

Sometime around High School I was given a copy of Balefire as a gift. It was one the few books that I had encountered at that point that dealt with the issue of terrorism which I had an interest in. Living in a very politically aware university town the threats of all out nuclear war and terrorism were often discussed, debated and lectured about. As a teen I had watched as there had been high profile hijackings and I knew about the Delta Force and the Iranian Hostage crisis. I was interested to read about terrorism, and stories that proposed to deal with terror on US soil were of interest to me.  Blaefire fit that mould perfectly.

From the authors website…

(http://www.kengoddardbooks.com/descriptions.htm)

When a real, honest-to-god professional terrorist named Thanatos shows up along the shoreline of Huntington Beach, California, intent on destroying the scenic beach city as a demonstration against the 1984 Olympic games, the local cops have no idea what's happening, and therefore don't stand much of a chance. Which puts them in a terrible situation when they're forced to chose between defending their city, their families ... and themselves.

I honestly don’t recall much about the book besides having enjoyed it’s mix of police and action enough to seek out more books by Goddard. While the ’84 games area going on 40 years past the threat of domestic terror and the response of Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement to such events have changed greatly in the last decade. We now have a department of Homeland Security (which I am sorry with all due respect is an awful name for the agency) who are tasked with responding to terror around the country.

As I noted I did seek out and read ore of the books by Goddard, who moved on to a pair of books, The Alchemist that dealt with designer drugs and Digger which I recall as a serial killer novel. I stopped picking up his books at some point, most likely because I stopped seeing them around. Looking at his website I see that he moved on to writing about Wild Life Law Enforcement.  In thinking back I think that I would like to revisit Balefire, just to see how the world of Law Enforcement and terror mix circa 1984, and I might even check out one of the Wildlife Law Enforcement themed books…

Goddard can be found on line HERE