Coupled with Stony Man #8 and #13 Warhead this is the standout title of the first thirty titles in this series.
I could rave on for page after page on this title but I am not going to as it would spoil it for you, it is hard to review what happens through the title and not give anything away of the plot/storyline but here goes.
The villian is excellent and has a computer team that rivals Stony Man's itself and the overall plot is not revealed until the last quarter of the title but when you find out what the overall objective of the operation was in fact going to be you will be stunned as it has worldwide ramifications.
So this plot is hidden by numerous sub plots many of which emanate from North Korea but there are numerous sub plots based in the US which keeps Able Team very busy indeed. Phoenix Force is split with two members travelling with Mack on his sojourns.
Now if I have piqued your interest to read this it would be in your interest to stop reading this review now as I may spoil something for you with the following.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
For the rest of us truly this author should be called Mr. Stony Man from his previous works to date in this series but he excels in this title. The sub plots are important here as the final plot is not revealed to very late in the title and they will blow you away in why they happen and then SOME OF THE BEST action scenes you have read for some time.
Mack is travelling somewhere by military transport when it is discovered they are being shadowed by an unknown aircraft resulting in him parachuting out of the aircraft and follows with the parachuting out of the Lear jet six other parachutes floating down to the jungles below. Having been handed a pistol and two spare mags by one of the flight crew prior to jumping. Six to one odds folks it is a no contest BUT enter some very COOL stuff which these six have on their selves and how the Big guy reacts to the dangers and what happens STUNNING STUFF especially what happens at the stream.
Able Team's stuff is superb with the ongoing storyline slotting in perfectly with their action scenes where Lyons absolutely excels here. As does Mack + 2 and the rest of Phoenix Force ACTION ACTION in their sub plot sections which will keep you flicking the pages.
The assault on the location of the meeting of the criminal networks brought together by the major villian near the end of the title is stunning stuff yet again coupled with some of the sub plots coming together into the overall plot leading to this section BUT it doesn't finish as the main villan has escaped in his "stealth submarine" only to be stopped in some more excellent writing.
Well I reckon do yourself a favour folks as this title has so many features whatever I have typed above only scratches the surface.
Highly recommended reading here.
I enjoyed the first half of this book far more than the second half. Early on, the bad guys, who have a cybernetics team that are almost as good as Stony Man, manage to penetrate Stony Man computers and cut Bolan and Phoenix Force off in North Korea. With out any intelligence, Bolan, Enzico and Hawkins are surrounded by what seems like half the Korean army. By this stage I was throughly hooked and was looking forward to giving the book a nine star rating. But then things started to get to easy for the Teams.
The only thing that annoyed me in the beginning was the co-incidence factor. An incident occurs in North Korea. Where are Phoenix and Bolan? Bolan is in the Philippines, half of Phoenix is in Japan and the other half are in South Korea, on what are completely unrelated missions. The second big co-incidence comes when the bad guys US base is discovered in New York. Where are Able? In New Jersey, again on a completely unrelated mission. In the second part, two things managed to irate me. First, body armour. Bolan takes round after round after round and doesn't even blink. And I always thought that Clark Kent was Superman. Secondly, even though Stony Man intelligence is breached, the guys just manage to find out who Mr Big is, where he lives, that he owns a secret stealth submarine, and where his current location is without any effort at all. That I found to be a big let down. And somewhere admist all of the gunfire, Mack and Phoenix find time to study a hotel's floor plans.
Overall this was a well written and fast moving story, only let down by the points I have mentioned. Oh, and The Farm is about to be attacked again, this time by a scud missile!
Good book, but could have been better.
