Target America

Disregarding the ordinary plot and the many shortcomings of this title which we will get to directly I actually enjoyed this title which flowed very nicely throughout the action scenes were good and numerous. The tension mounts when the sub is taken and the possibilities of what could be unleashed and where it could happen is alarming. Now we are talking about one of the US Navy's most advanced nuclear powered and armed submarines here which has been taken by terrorists and currently submerged heading for a firing location unknown to unleash nuclear missiles in selected locations in the US. It's going great this title at this stage when........... Grimaldi is sent to a nearby battle group and takes command where he waits to jump in his helicopter and take out the sub when it is located? The possible carnage that this sub could inflict on the US would have had every available plane in the air to blast the sub the second it surfaced. A side plot with a stolen helicopter armed with a missile to take out Cape Canaveral is on it's way and Pol orders the air force to stand down it's fighter jets (I'm also not sure when he took command of Able Team but he does here) as he has a Stinger and has a good feeling where the helicopter is heading for and feels he can take it out himself? Bullshit it would have been shot down before he even caught sight of it. The taking out of the Cuban guy at the end in the toilets was strange I thought they were going to kidnap him and interrogate him but no? After all that, as I said I enjoyed this so eight stars here good read. 2 stars deducted The critical sniper scenes come on Mike not every title PLEASE!!!!!!!. 2 stars deducted (next time will be three) The obligatory female contact of Mack who is inevitably captured by the enemy and requires rescuing prior to being killed. (Thank god folks she is rescued none the worse for the wear). Imagine that ? I read it and enjoyed it even with the crap I typed above with some of my gripes up to you.

I struggled through this story, the plot just didn't hold my attention at all. It wasn't a good plot, it wasn't a bad plot it was just bland. The villains were all identical. I was halfway through the book, still wondering who exactly was in charge of the ANI. Halfway through it turns out to be Albano. Albano and his lackeys were, unfortunately, identical clones of each other. There were no characteristics to seperate them. Plus they were all pretty dumb, and it stretched credibility that they could pull off what they did - although I can believe that it really would be so easy to get onto a Navy base as long as the right people were in the right place. Bolan and friends were equally flat and uninteresting. I did wonder about Katz, it seems that he is now running around firing a M-16. With one hand? Is that possible? But it was the plot that failed the most. Mike Newton attempted to make the last quater of the story a sort of "Hunt for Red October". This might have worked if more people had been involved in the hunt for the renegade submarine. Unfortunatly the hunt was restricted to Stony Man personnel. Jack Grimaldi is posted to an aircraft carrier, and he is the only person who can hunt down the sub. No other navy perwsonnel are involved. Equally annoying was the attempted helicopter attack on NASA. Able Team - armed with a stinger missile - take it upon themselves to guess where the stolen helicopter will show up and lie in wait for it. There is the option to call in assistance from the Navy and other armed forces, but Pol decides to use "his considerable influence" and have all the other hunting parties grounded. Just so that he can shoot down the helicopter. Equally annoying was the assassination of the Cuban agent by Able Team. Didn't they realise that they could grab the agent and interrogate him, then turn him over to the FBI/CIA and have them interrogate him? A wealth of information was lost because Able decide to ambush the agent and cut his throat instead. Bolan is pretty much a team player, but does go solo when his FBI contact (a pretty woman) is kidnapped by the enemy. He does his usual thing of blowing up things and leaving messages behind until he learns of the location of the girl. So nothing new there. There are hints of a romance between the two, but that is mysteriously dropped in the second part of the book. So, all in all, the story had potential but for me it just fell flat.

A good old-fashioned page-turner, TARGET AMERICA hooked me in right at the first chapter and kept me hooked until the last page. I finished it in two days and my only quarrel is that I lost sleep because of it. Great stuff here and one of Newton's better outings.

woo hoo this has to be one of the earliest stony man books i have read. i have read it more than 5 times. very very very very good story in my opinion

I thought this was a really good book with plenty of action and storylines to follow. as usual some of he names and nicknames were hard to remember but thats my problem.

I found this to be a pretty enjoyable entry from Mike Newton. A big improvement from Stony Man VII.