Night of the Thuggee

This book was good. I like the location and the thuggees. I thought that the KGB were biting off more than they could chew with this mission. Pretty far fetched plan. All in all I give this book 8 stars. I really liked Katz taking out the terrorists at the deli at the beginning of the book. Good stuff.

A somewhat interesting title to read as the plot is interesting and as usual the actions scenes are very well done. But in an amusing way I was going to count in the last title how many times the members of the team drop or have their weapons knocked out of their hands but didn't get around to it having totally agreed with previous reviewers that it just happens TOO much. Well I got up to five times in this title and when three of the team have this occur to them within ONE and a HALF PAGES I gave up I am guessing it would be close to 10+ . How many times can Katz use his prothesis extension to rip out the throat of an adversary? How many times can you smash a windpipe? How many times can you break a neck or back? How many times can you kick an adversary in the genitals? Sure these titles are going to contain some of this stuff but gee within title after title with the same stuff it gets tedious and even more so after each ensuing title. Personally I think this author needed some fresh ideas at the time of this writing.

“Night of the Thuggee” is where Phoenix Force head to India to deal with an ancient cult killing tourists. What follows is the standard shoot and scopolamine investigation. I liked the journey into the mountain darkness of India and their firefights along the way. What stops the show is what they find. A laser-shooting statue of Kali, the Thuggee’s idol of worship. It’s a classic Star Trek episode and a Destroyer novel, built into one. But it’s a Phoenix Force novel, so it was built by the KGB.

The butterfingered lads of Phoenix Force travel to India to thwart a revival of the murderous thugee cult. This is a better book than most of the preceding ones in this series. The villains and the plot are both good, the pacing is OK without too much bogging down and the action is frequent and entertaining if you can ignore the unfortunate habit of every member of Fumble Force to drop their firearms during every encounter with the enemy. This strange misfortune might have been an exciting addition to the action once. Perhaps even once every book. But this author has written this same tired cliche into every action scene of every book in the series for so long now that the main tension in these scenes comes not from the action but from waiting to see how each clumsy member of the team will be disarmed. But even when the heroes have their weapons they inexplicably choose to shoot the horde of attacking stranglers in the legs. It seems silly for them to worry about it being unsporting to shoot murderers. The author continues has effort to display his knowledge of ancient exotic weapons by arming his villains with a "lathi stick", a "vajra-musti knuckleduster" and a "Bundi dagger". This desire to show off his arcane knowledge might explain why his heroes have so much trouble holding onto their weapons. A band of villains armed with ancient weapons wouldn't pose a great threat to a team armed with modern automatic weapons. The action and interesting villains, the plot and pacing are actually very good here. This is a 7 star book.

Can't help but compare it to Return to Armaggedon book 11. Both books are about a return of an ancient cult. I liked RTA slightly more. I thought the Hashassins (sp?) were slightly more interesting. In both books the followers were really nothing more then brainless followers. I also liked the fact how this was not an assigned mission and how Katz pushed it into a mission and how the rest stood by him. In this novel. Well the Thuggees history was interesting. The killers were probably the most mindless I have read. The main villians well the Prince was a fun villian a total coward and spilled at first oppurtonity. I also thought the scene with the NSA agent at the first meting was pretty funny and how he kept thinking they were CIA and how Katz hhreatened him politely. Although the second meeting was very dry. The scene heading into the mountain and on top of the mountain was very fun reading and exciting. It did seem the PF gang had infinite bullets though. Killing and maiming a slew of bandits then cutting up and killing near 100 Thuggee followers. A clear 7. Also a very good 10 novel dealing with Kali is the Destroyer novel Arms of Kali. Very funny, interesting and added a further mythos to the series. Although a major difference is how Kali is seen in the Destroyer novel as a lover/foe of Shiva but in this PF novel Kali is seen as the daughter of Shiva. Although in the Destroyer series Kali inhabits Remo's daughter in book I believe 105.

This is one of the more enjoyable of the earlier PF novels, I like the villains in this one, and of course loaded with the usual Fieldhouse action. A book worth adding to anyones collection.

Good action scenes with great villains.

The action was good but for some reason this book seemed a little flat.

Good action, but the plot was half-baked. Exactly what threat did the Thugees represent?