Rose Gold (The Gaia Trilogy Book Two) by David Barker

Read May 2019. Published 1st August 2018.

This is the second book in the Gaia Trilogy, and is set a few years after the adventures of Blue Gold.
Sim is now married to Rosie and is back working for the satellite division of OFWAT, having decided that the excitement of the Overseas Division is not for him.
Freda has retired to New Zealand for a quiet life, and is no longer on active duty for OFWAT; although she has left her options open.
Gopal and Rabten are also back, having been drafted into OFWAT after helping Freda and Sim with their previous mission in China.

The book starts with Sim discovering that he has a son he did not know about - a bit awkward considering he and Rosie have been trying unsuccessfully for their own baby. This son is the result of his brief encounter with Elsa Greenwood, head of Marinus, which happened during the Blue Gold mission.
Elsa is now running the Rare Earth Moon Unit for a company called Adams Holdings. She is in charge of the mining operations on the Moon and oversees the research projects running there. She is concerned that there have been some strange goings-on at the Moon Unit - including the suspicious death of one of the miners - and she does not trust anyone working there. Apparently, she will only trust Sim to come to her aid, as he is the father of her child.
Sim is drafted back into the Overseas Division, to help save the World from danger again - this time from the Moon!

Meanwhile, there are strange goings-on on Earth too. The Terror Formers are still up to their terrorist tricks. There are bombings; stolen strains of diseases that attack crops; and the spreading of lethal human infections too.
Gopal and Rabten have a mission of their own, and they will need Freda to return to active duty to aid them.

This book is another absolute winner from David Barker!
I particularly enjoyed the addition of Sim watching Gerry Anderson's Space 1999 TV programme while he was undertaking his investigation at the Moon Unit - it brought back memories of Saturday mornings watching this when I was a child! If you have not seen this, please look it up on YouTube - you will not be sorry, although you might be a bit bemused (remember this was the 1970s!).

This time, Sim gets to be the hero of his own mission. He will need to combine the traits of James Bond and one of Agatha Christie's finest detectives (Hercules Poirot is always my first choice) for this one...and he will need to overcome his hatred of the Chinese too. Sim will also experience a lot of difficult emotions during his spell on the Moon - not all of them happy ones.
Sim has grown in confidence since the Blue Gold mission, and definitely proves himself worthy of a place in the Overseas Division in this book.

Rose Gold ends on a bit of a cliffhanger re Freda, Gopal and Rabten. I hope Sim can use his new found confidence and skills to aid them in their difficulties! I need more of Freda and the gang in the next book.

There are a few new characters introduced in Rose Gold too, who would make good additions to the team, so I hope to see more of them.

This book can be read as a stand-alone, but is so much more enjoyable if you know the history between the characters, and why wouldn't you give yourself the pleasure of reading the whole series?

I am very much looking forward to the finale of the Gaia Trilogy, White Gold.