Rating: 
Summary: I Think The Man in the Gaberdine Suit is a Spy...
Review: The next line in the song is "she says his bowtie is really a camera," and throughout this latest novel from Stephen Coonts I couldn't stop thinking about these lyrics from the old Simon and Garfunkel song. This novel reminds me that we have not travelled very far from the days of the sixties when the cold war was at its peak. Sure Coonts has thrown in a bunch of new technological gadgets to make the story contemporary, but it's the same old story - we have it, they want it. The "it" this time is the USS America, the latest, high-tech, ultra-expensive, nuclear submarine that the Navy has just commissioned. It's loaded with the best sonar, the best electronics and the most recent high tech gadgetry that Uncle Sam can buy, including "Flashlight" Tomahawk cruise missiles that release an energy pulse on detonation capable of disabling all things electrical, including automatic doorlocks on cars, commercial airliners' electronics and the White House communications systems; and to the chagrin of the USA, the sub gets hijacked. The hero in all of this is once again Jake Grafton, the naval officer who is connected in all the right places and written about in other Coonts' novels. Jake's character should have been expanded more in this book because if the reader is unfamiliar with Jake from previous novels, then his credibility as someone whom the USA would rely upon at a time of crisis is questionable. Other characters in the story making a return appearance from previous novels like Tommy Carmellini, the CIA operative whose irreverence at the bureaucracy seems believable, cry out for a bigger part. Coonts does, however, move the story along with his concise writing style and plot lines and before you know it, you'll be finished reading this book. If you liked "Hong Kong" and "Cuba" by this author, you'll certainly like this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Great plot, disappointing finish
Review: This is a good book, and should make an great movie. The author proceeds the book with a proper disclaimer about technology, so the reader is warned ahead of time not to take it too literally. The writing is clear; Coonts is a very good writer. Some of his scenes are so realistic that when you put the book down, you are suprised at being safely back at home, not in the chaos that he creates in Washington and New York City. The plot, essentially a runaway hacker combined with a Star Wars scenario gone bad, starts out extremely well. The US' latest submarine and a guided missile, in apparently unrelated events, are stolen. The plot is developed in an interesting way.The shortcomings of the book for me were the selection of heros and the way he closes out the story. The characters are a little too much like plastic soldiers off the shelf. The biggest disappointment was the climax. The final situation is so patently unrealistic that I found myself sitting there thinking, "why is he ruining a good story with this silly final act?" It simply defies credibility that the US government, no matter how goofy the situation, would ever rely on a Marine Corps general and his wife, a two-star admiral (the hero of the book) and his wife, to sally forth into a virtual combat situation, thinly disguised with paste-on mustaches and Virginia Beach attire, to save the Nation. It is, regrettably, almost as if Coonts decided to create a comic, Chevy Chase-goes-to-war, ending to the book. Too bad. For the movie, I suggest a better ending. And don't count on the Europeans liking the movie at all; too close to the truth there. (Some of Coonts' geopolitical analyses, uttered by a Russian intelligence officer, are right on the mark and frightening in their implications.) By all means, if you like "Red October" you will like "America." Red October still sets the standard, which neither Clancy in subsequent works nor Coonts in this one, have equalled. I enjoyed "America" and look forward to the movie.
Rating:
Summary: great story, mediocre writing
Review: This is the first Stephen Coonts book I've read, and I have to say, this guy needs an editor in the worst way. He's a great storyteller. The plot drew me in quickly -- and it was actually rather prescient, having been published before the 9/11 tragedy. But the writing is just sloppy. The same piece of information is frequently delivered twice in the same scene, as though the author decided to move it and then forgot to delete the original mention. He refers to characters by their full names incongruously and often, sometimes more than once in a paragraph when the characters have already been introduced. (Occasionally they've been introduced more than once, as though the author had forgotten he'd already done it). Mystifying acronyms show up all over and aren't defined until later, but the NSA is for some reason referred to by its full name throughout the book. These seem like minor details, but they're distracting; to me, they disrupt the flow of the narrative. If you're not a writer, these things probably won't bother you. It really is a good story, and I'd love to see it made into a movie. Coonts, unlike Tom Clancy, describes technology in just enough detail to make it interesting, but not with the sort of excruciating obsession with minutiae that makes Clancy's books too bloated for me to bother with. Coonts' description of the sub <i>America's</i> control room is so vivid I can picture myself there. The characters are surprisingly believable for this sort of book, although some could do with a little more detail. But as a writer... well, by page 20 I was seriously considering marking the paperback up in red ink and mailing it back to the publisher with my resume and rates.
Rating:
Summary: great story, mediocre writing
Review: This is the first Stephen Coonts book I've read, and I have to say, this guy needs an editor in the worst way. He's a great storyteller. The plot drew me in quickly -- and it was actually rather prescient, having been published before the 9/11 tragedy. But the writing is just sloppy. The same piece of information is frequently delivered twice in the same scene, as though the author decided to move it and then forgot to delete the original mention. He refers to characters by their full names incongruously and often, sometimes more than once in a paragraph when the characters have already been introduced. (Occasionally they've been introduced more than once, as though the author had forgotten he'd already done it). Mystifying acronyms show up all over and aren't defined until later, but the NSA is for some reason referred to by its full name throughout the book. These seem like minor details, but they're distracting; to me, they disrupt the flow of the narrative. If you're not a writer, these things probably won't bother you. It really is a good story, and I'd love to see it made into a movie. Coonts, unlike Tom Clancy, describes technology in just enough detail to make it interesting, but not with the sort of excruciating obsession with minutiae that makes Clancy's books too bloated for me to bother with. Coonts' description of the sub America's control room is so vivid I can picture myself there. The characters are surprisingly believable for this sort of book, although some could do with a little more detail. But as a writer... well, by page 20 I was seriously considering marking the paperback up in red ink and mailing it back to the publisher with my resume and rates.
Rating:
Summary: The story sinks when the action moves to a cruise ship
Review: This time Stephen Coonts really let me down! I was getting ready to give "America" five stars until I hit the third-last chapter, at which point the action moves to a luxury cruise ship, and the good guys take their wives along for the jaunt!
When the going gets tough, the tough guys (and their wives) go for a luxury cruise? No way!
Until the last three chapters I really liked "America". OK, the plot is a bit farfetched, involving hackers meddling with the launch of a super-advanced military satellite and a CIA-trained team of Russians and East Germans stealing a likewise super-advanced US Navy submarine named "America". But if you can swallow the plot the story is very exciting, and the characterizations of the people in the book is fairly good.
The submarine "America" and its advanced equipment and weapons are the real stars of the show. I especially loved the descriptions of the havoc created by the Tomahawk cruise missiles with new EMP (electromagnetic pulse) warheads, the attempts by two F-16 Fighting Falcons to shoot down the cruise missiles, and the underwater battle between "America" and two Los Angeles class submarines. At times like this Stephen Coonts is even better than Tom Clancy.
There is also a whole array of bad guys who you can love to hate. The one who's presented best is the Russian captain Vladimir Kolnikov, the leader of the team that steals "America" and then inflicts major damage on the USA. Zelda Hudson, the American hacker who finds it only slightly challenging to re-program a satellite launch or to get into any of the Pentagon's weapons systems, is also a cool customer whose services are available to the highest bidder.
Unfortunately, the two top bad guys, the Frenchmen Antoine Jouany and Willi Schlegel, never get much coverage, remaining simply "the nasty Europeans" who want to challenge the dominance of the USA. It would have been nice if they got to play a larger role.
But then comes the last three chapters, and major disappointment. Willi Schlegel happens to own a luxury cruise ship and decides to use it to rendezvous with "America" off the coast of Portugal. This is totally crazy - what bad guy in his right mind would involve hundreds of paying passengers and hundreds of non-combatant crew members in his criminal activities?
Even crazier, the good guys then decide to get aboard the luxury cruise ship pretending to be ordinary passengers and they bring their wives along to provide cover. Of course the bad guys are on top of the situation and the next thing we know the good guys and their wives are being held at gunpoint! Is this dumb or what?
I don't know how you feel about your wife (or husband), but deliberately and unnecessarily putting her (or him) in harm's way when going up against cold-blooded killers is not my idea of proper behavior.
In summary, an exciting techno-thriller that's great until it breaches the reader's credulity when the action in the last three chapters moves to a luxury cruise ship and the good guys bring their wives along for the final confrontation. That twist in the plot is too much to swallow, and spoils the whole book.
Rennie Petersen
Rating:
Summary: The story sinks when the action moves to a cruise ship
Review: This time Stephen Coonts really let me down! I was getting ready to give "America" five stars until I hit the third-last chapter, at which point the action moves to a luxury cruise ship, and the good guys take their wives along for the jaunt! When the going gets tough, the tough guys (and their wives) go for a luxury cruise? No way! Until the last three chapters I really liked "America". OK, the plot is a bit farfetched, involving hackers meddling with the launch of a super-advanced military satellite and a CIA-trained team of Russians and East Germans stealing a likewise super-advanced US Navy submarine named "America". But if you can swallow the plot the story is very exciting, and the characterizations of the people in the book is fairly good. The submarine "America" and its advanced equipment and weapons are the real stars of the show. I especially loved the descriptions of the havoc created by the Tomahawk cruise missiles with new EMP (electromagnetic pulse) warheads, the attempts by two F-16 Fighting Falcons to shoot down the cruise missiles, and the underwater battle between "America" and two Los Angeles class submarines. At times like this Stephen Coonts is even better than Tom Clancy. There is also a whole array of bad guys who you can love to hate. The one who's presented best is the Russian captain Vladimir Kolnikov, the leader of the team that steals "America" and then inflicts major damage on the USA. Zelda Hudson, the American hacker who finds it only slightly challenging to re-program a satellite launch or to get into any of the Pentagon's weapons systems, is also a cool customer whose services are available to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, the two top bad guys, the Frenchmen Antoine Jouany and Willi Schlegel, never get much coverage, remaining simply "the nasty Europeans" who want to challenge the dominance of the USA. It would have been nice if they got to play a larger role. But then comes the last three chapters, and major disappointment. Willi Schlegel happens to own a luxury cruise ship and decides to use it to rendezvous with "America" off the coast of Portugal. This is totally crazy - what bad guy in his right mind would involve hundreds of paying passengers and hundreds of non-combatant crew members in his criminal activities? Even crazier, the good guys then decide to get aboard the luxury cruise ship pretending to be ordinary passengers and they bring their wives along to provide cover. Of course the bad guys are on top of the situation and the next thing we know the good guys and their wives are being held at gunpoint! Is this dumb or what? I don't know how you feel about your wife (or husband), but deliberately and unnecessarily putting her (or him) in harm's way when going up against cold-blooded killers is not my idea of proper behavior. In summary, an exciting techno-thriller that's great until it breaches the reader's credulity when the action in the last three chapters moves to a luxury cruise ship and the good guys bring their wives along for the final confrontation. That twist in the plot is too much to swallow, and spoils the whole book.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best Coonts¿ novels
Review: Tomahawk missiles with e-warheads turn modern cities into Dark Ages' towns. Jake, Toad and Tommy Carmellini get involved in a scenario that makes you wonder if something like that could really happen just now or in the near future.
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