Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves
Australian first edition cover
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| Author | Matthew Reilly |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Wayne Haag |
| Country | Australia 
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| Language | English |
| Series | Shane Schofield |
| Genre | Thriller novel, Techno-thriller |
| Publisher | Pan MacMillan |
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Publication date
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12 October 2011 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 576 |
| ISBN | |
| Preceded by | 'Scarecrow' |
| Followed by | Unknown |
Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves is an action thriller novel released on 12 October 2011 by Australian author Matthew Reilly. It is the latest installment in the Shane Schofield series.
On 24 December 2010, Reilly announced his fifth Scarecrow novel stating:
One month before the official release, Reilly's publisher released a video trailer for the book.
During a routine re-staffing of Dragon Island, an old Soviet weapons installation in the Arctic, a Russian Spetsnaz team comes under fire from an unknown enemy. Vasily Ivanov, a researcher assigned to Dragon, manages to send out a distress signal which is intercepted by an American listening station in Alaska before his plane is shot down. Dragon Island was once the cornerstone of Soviet weapons research, a place where cutting-edge weapons were designed by scientists with a blank cheque. It has been seized by an organisation calling themselves "The Army of Thieves", led by the enigmatic Lord of Anarchy. Self-proclaimed anarchists, the Army is made up of enforcers of the Pinochet regime, Sudanese Janjaweed militants, Islamic fundamentalists and narco-terrorists. They are planning to unleash Dragon Island's centrepiece, known as the Tesla Weapon. Experiments with rocket fuel and samples of acids acquired from the atmosphere of Venus have created a compound that, when ignited, can set fire to the atmosphere. The Tesla Weapons was constructed on Dragon Island as prevailing air currents will disperse the acid-fuel mixture around the world. The Army of Thieves have taken control of the facility on Dragon Island and have activated the preliminary stages of the Tesla Weapon.
Still reeling from the events of Scarecrow, United States Marine Corps Captain Shane Schofield has been reassigned to an equipment-testing project in the Arctic; this equipment includes BRT-E, or "Bertie", a multi-functional, independently intelligent robot. Although cleared for active duty, Schofield is seen as a liability by the Corps, and has spent most of his time teaching new recruits. His situation is somewhat complicated by an outstanding bounty on his head; although members of the Majestic-12 conspiracy are dead, the French government has offered to pay the bounty as retaliation for the events of Ice Station and Scarecrow. Schofield is one of just two units close to Dragon Island; the other is a Navy SEAL team stationed on the USS Miami, a Los Angeles-class submarine. Ira Barker, the leader of this unit, warns Schofield to stay away from Dragon Island or else risk being caught in the crossfire. The SEAL insertion is a disaster, with every member of the team being killed off by the Army. With no other choice, Schofield makes for Dragon Island.
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