Drawpoint

First up author in this series and what a gem he has delivered. This is a very good title released in the series where we have a almost original plot with almost original bad guys to be up against. The Bad Guys here are those tree hugging greenie environmentalists who can't see beyond the end of their nose when it comes to anything intelligent save their aims. So thank goodness for a little bit of originality well done to the author no endless hordes of Arab terrorists to be mowed down like wooden ducks. Action scenes were plentiful and good to great so again lots of reasons to read this one. Personally I loved it and highly recommended reading.

An interesting book in that the villains are nominally rabid environmentalists. That concept wasn't carried too far, however. Able Team spends most of their time blasting Russian agents while Phoenix is dueling your typical 3rd world Latin America private army types. The enviroterrorist plot seems almost to have been a waste of an original idea. Rather than building to some major terrorist attack to "save the environment", there is yet another 3rd world nutcase with nuclear ICBMS as the climax. Phoenix Force gets captured (again) and escapes (again). What Carl doesn't tear up with an automatic 12-gauge gets trashed by his mouth....is it just me or does he seem to be deliberately being bone-headed in this book just to give Hal something to do to clean up the messes he is making? I had some trouble with the whole Zone of Dispute concept where no one in Central America is claiming the area. I find that hard to suspend disbelief over. It might be disputed...but someone would claim it....indeed what is the Dispute if no one wants it??? I have an issue with the extended ending where Phoenix is racing around trying to locate the dead-man triggers to the ICBMs that are about to be launched. You are risking an explosion, but you can stop a missile by raking it with automatic rifle fire. An ICBM is not armor-plated. You could damage the motors or the guidance package and it might fly...but not far. Although some of the other reviews talk about how action packed this book is, I found a lot of it rather clinical reading for the most part. Here is an example drawn from deep in the book "Blancanales pumped away with his CAR-15. Guards fell one after the next. Lyons stayed clear of Blanacanale's field of fire, supplementing the withering 5.56mm hail with bullets of his own. Finally, they had cleared the field of opposition once again and Butler's armed guards were lying on the carpeted floor." A lot of the book is like this. There is action...but it is so....vague???....that I don't find it very satisfying. It is like reading the description of a gunfight in a screenplay...you know it should be exciting once you see it...but it doesn't "feel" like much on the page. I liked the last chunk of the book where Congressman Cross gets what is coming to him. The political twisting and turnings revealed at that point where interesting....as was the fact that Cross was allowed to drift away into political obscurity. I also felt that the book was more balanced with regards to what characters you saw. Sometimes, the field commanders of Able and Phoenix seem to be the only focus of the writer with the rest of the "cast" as movable parts of the scenery. Here...it seems that everyone does get a chance to do more than just pull triggers to support their "honored leader". Not a bad book...but drifting more toward the pulpier side that I know I personally don't care as much for. I suspect I will never reread it.

Excellent action, concise plot movement, and just enough attention paid to each of the characters to feel like they're involved in the story. Though Able and Phoenix don't meaningfully coordinate for much of the book, each team is busy uncovering clues and tracking down bad guys just in time to set the other team on the track of the next chain in the puzzle. When the climactic showdown finally comes, the big punches seem to keep rolling one after the other. This is a solid action book, which I quite enjoyed. The villains fell somewhat flat, both in motivation and in final characterization. It felt somewhat like the guys were confronting the same villain over and over, two of them even meeting their end in a manner and with remarkable similar self-delivered eulogies that was supposed to unite two otherwise disparate characters by revealing the man and motivation beneath their hypocrisy, but instead simply felt repetitive. Even so, this did nothing to spoil the excellent characterization, impeccable action scenes, and gratifyingly logical plot progression that turned a casual read into an imminently satisfying one.

Very entertaining book, lots of action, some really great combat sequences, breaking down how the boys of PF are so effective, covering fire, movement, positioning, really well done. A little too much of McCarter bossing the rest of the boys around but I guess he IS the leader now ! Always good to see some interesting villains, the show down between Able and the Russian was really well done ! Great Book !!

Drawpoint is an excellent Stony Man! Commie whackos, Green goons, stooges, pathetic politicans and other foul extremists all entangled into a yarn that really touches the current feelings and fears of today's political scene in the USA. Great action and the supporting cast was good and the villians better.