Close Quarters

This one was a blast. Things get started rather briskly when Able is baby-sitting a witness and the lead starts to fly. Then in a change of pace, the boys are sent to Tehran to wreak havoc. Phoenix's arc is solid as they head to Paraguay to search for the missing hostages. Able goes undercover in enemy territory, evading hit teams and becoming one (which was a little out of the ordinary for them). But, it all climaxed in a desperate escape from Iran's shores, with Phoenix coming in to help Able take on two gunboats in explosive fashion.

I would like to start this review by making an appeal to Jon Guenther. Please, please, please stop putting "English" idioms, colloquialisms and jargon into McCarters mouth. Nine times out of ten they are inappropriately used and make for painful reading. Nobody but nobody walks up to someone and says "How are you doing, bloke?" It should be "How are you doing, mate?" So please, drop the "bloke", "mate", "chum" and "luv" from the stories. But on to the story Close Quarters. Raymond Chandlers law states that when in doubt have men with guns burst into the room. This applies to writers block - and I am not saying that Jon had writers block - but this 'plot point' was used over and over again. It quickly became tiresome. How did the bad guys located Phoenix Force so quickly in Paraguay? Nobody knows, but shooting started for very little reason. And it happened far to often. And I lost the plot. Literally. What was it all about? A group of volunteers are kidnapped because the Hezbollah and Iranians didn't want to attract attention to their electronic smuggling business? But, but....by kidnapping the group they did exactly the opposite. Bad guys don't need to be smart, but in fiction there should be a plot to keep the reader reading. Returning to the other plot....Able Team are in Tehran! Yes, Able Team are operating abroad! Wonderful! Kudos to Mr Guenther. Unfortunately the plot got lost here as well. Able Team end up working for the bad guys to kill other bad guys? I think that was it. I think that they were met to extract the one informer/bad guy but ended up being led around by the nose and having bad guys with guns burst into the room. Good points: Able Team in Iran. Cool cover. The ending with the Iranian warships was pretty good, although it could have been better detailed. I do question how Phoenix Force managed to travel half way around the world just to show up in the nick of time, but oh well. So all in all I found that McCarters speech patterns through me out of the story every time, and there wasn't a clear enough plot to engage me.

A great book! great to see Able and Phoenix work side by side. Able heads to south america to check on a crazy terrorist story told by an escaped hostage. Phoenix heads to Iran to check on the connecting leads. They all meet up at the end and the cover of the books starts to make sense. I was glad that the cover tied into the actual story because sometimes SM covers make no sense at all (see Terror Trail). This book has a great plot and some memorable characters. I loved "Pops", he was outstanding! His ending gave me goose bumps! I liked the amount of profanity used in this book. It was enough to be realistic (lets be honest, dudes cuss a lot!) but not enough to get annoying. lets hope this title is a SM trend and the good ones keep coming!