I’ve come across many self-published or first published thrillers on Amazon. Most of them, including the relatively good ones, scream amateurishness and inexperience.”Breakthrough” was a whole different story (no pun intended). It was well written, well paced, and the author really cared about developing the main characters. Granted, some of them (especially the politicians) came across cartoonish, but most of the front-and-center characters were believable and full-bodied.

The book was intriguing and suspenseful from the beginning to the very end. It approached the technological and scientific questions that it dealt with in a fairly believable and informed way. This was particularly true of one of the main themes of this book – communication with dolphins. The same holds for the military operations and protocols. I have never been in the military, and I suspect that military people will probably find any fictionalized book like this one laughable, but compared to the other offerings in this category this book came across as much more realistic.

Another aspect of this book that I enjoyed was the fact that it was a self-contained story. Granted, the end of the book left many questions opened, and it’s possible to see how there could be a sequel of sorts. However, this book, unlike many that I’ve seen today, was not written as a bait to get the reader hooked on a particular character and have him spend more on other books in the series. I hope that the success with this novel spurs Michael Grumley to write more books, but I intend to treat all of them as separate works in their own right.