This book was a mix for me. I really enjoy the Stony Man books, and Nick Pollota is one of the better writers for me, but this book was a bit of a disappointment.
A crime family in Albania has somehow managed to get a hold of a weapon that can remotely cause nuclear weapons to blow up. It's never really explained how they got it, or how they managed to get (or highjack) more than a dozen satellites in orbit. Also, at the start of the book, Phoenix Force is attacking white slavers in the Mediterranean who caught the daughter of a US Senator. In the middle of the book, you find out that one of the women rescued is a daughter of the crime family. Closer to the end, Phoenix Force attacks the crimelord's castle where they are preparing for the welcome home party. But really, they never do anything with the woman, and if you show a gun in the first scene, it should be used before the last scene.
Now, it is possible that a future Stony Man novel will pick up with her again, since she was being groomed to be the future head of her crime family before her disappearance. After all, Jack Higgins got something like five books out of the 'family looking for revenge' plot.
But setting that aside, the book also had a scene in which a Yakuza boss who'd been approached by the Albanians in a "follow us and we'll make you immune from the law" offer, and was insulted by their rudeness, decides that *his* family will help the Americans take the Albanians out. Again, there is no sign of this later.
Plus, how the hell were the Albanians able to get thousands of super computers and embed them inside a glacier in an American national park without anyone noticing? Especially the buying of the computers. If it's the biggest super-computer in the world, wouldn't a sudden sale of thousands be tagged by multiple federal agencies.
And then there was the goof of having two men named Sakir Elsani (one of the scientists, and one of the crime family who set up the plot).
But despite the plot holes, it was a fun read. You just have to carefully ignore the WTF elements.
This is my first Stony Man novel. It was decent but not great. Able Team and Phoenix Force didn't seem to be the main characters, they weren't in the book that much. Also, the action sequences were less than perfect. I thought the plot had potential, but then it fell flat. The ending was still intense though.
For the usual Death-Satellite-of-the-Month, this one has a far more ambitious plot than most. Instead of screwing with GPS, this one triggers nuclear weapons from all over the globe, no matter where they are.
Phoenix Force and Able Team are barely in this one. This is strange, because Bolan is not in it at all. The teams are in large, subplots for most of it. Page for page, perhaps the lightest in terms of their involvement in any other Stony Man I’ve read. What replaces them are aside plots, of leaders grasping at straws, of hapless military men who get incinerated, of victims who seek revenge, or contingency plans to confront the world threat. It gives the work a broader scope, but with little follow-through, a scattershot atmosphere. I sometimes thought the author was trying to win a bet, to see if he could write a Stony Man marginalizing the main characters for as long as possible. For those who endure: Able Team and Phoenix Force resurface in the last third to finish up with some decent and prolonged fighting sequences.
Editing is also weak. Cod word instead of code word. There are two (or possibly three) separate men named Sakir Elsani running around in this novel. I’m thinking it’s not the Albanian version of John Smith.
Dubious science and technology weakens his hand. (Note to author: LCD screens are the most popular computer monitor in the world today. Plasma screens are popular mostly in living rooms. A plasma display for a laptop? There is no such a beast.) I’m not convinced that blowing up a nuke next to another one would cause a chain reaction. And if I was convinced, then the concentration through accumulation would make each nuke chain-reaction more dangerous than is depicted here. Not to mention the political/social fallout of these events, that would have far, far, far more consequences than a 9/11, and should have ramifications for decades to come. I’m not convinced I will see that either.
