Rating: 
Summary: Better Than Television - Give The Guy A Chance
Review: I enjoyed reading this one. As you may know, Steven Cannell is an extremely successful television producer, who has changed his focus to writing novels.For the first 100 pages, I thought "The Devil's Workshop" was a cross between "The Corbra Event"/"Hot Zone" by Richard Preston and Cannell's TV show, "Renegade" starring Fernadoz Lamas. I was biased. But I gave the guy a chance, and the book turned-out to be quite good. Writting novels allows Cannell to expand on his material, beyond the normal television scripts. For example, there is a character, "Buddy Brazil", a Hollywood producer who I found to be an interesting mixture of man consumed by his self fabricated macho image confronted with a dangerous reality that exposes his limitations. The internal dialouge Buddy has with himself, about his life and hollow achievements, is very good.
Rating: 
Summary: I never even finished this book
Review: I have always accociated Stephen J Cannell with great story telling on TV in series like The Rockford Files and was therefore pleased to see him start to write novels. I have read all his novels which I enjoyed except for one thing, the gratuitous amount of foul language in them. It is not necessary on TV to tell a good story for characters to swear every other word so why must it be so in these books. I kept hoping with each successive novel that if enough people complained that he would tone it down. I am not saying that you can't have any but is it really necessary for almost every other word to be a swear word? Some people may talk like that but I certainly don't want to be subjected to it. I am afraid that with The Devil's Workshop after about getting half way through I decided that enough was enough. Mr Cannell has lost a fan and I am afraid I won't be buying any more of his books. This is a shame because he can be a great story teller.
Rating: 
Summary: one of cannell's best
Review: I love Cannell's books but his latest is really different and inteligent in its plot. He gets you on the first page and never lets go! Also his hero and heroine are not the usual-reporter-cop type.
Rating: 
Summary: 2 Stars for Readability, but that's about it.
Review: I think just about everyone is familiar with the name of Stephen J. Cannell. If you ever turned your television on during the late 80's and early 90's, you have already experienced his style of entertainment. Lots of gun play, explosions and over the top baddies and lackeys. "The Devil's Workshop" tries very hard to be a suspenseful action/adventure novel... however I think it suffers from one too many story lines. Cannell throws in so many stereotypical characters, it's silly. All with cheesy made-for-tv names like: "Lucky" Cunningham, Dexter Demille, Admiral Zoll and the completely over-the-top religious zealot/hobo/white supremacist (some combo!) Reverend Fannon Kincaid. Also thrown into this tale are a series of disposable background characters; none of whom advance the story very much. Here's the gist of the story... the government has illegally designed a race-specific airborne virus (scary!), but it's been discovered by grieving widow/microbiologist Stacey Richardson. The Feds try and cover up their tracks, only to have one of the creators elude their hit-squad and team up with Kincaid and his train-riding brethren. The rating of two stars is for the readability of "The Devil's Workshop." Mr. Cannell provides a fairly decent yarn, but I'm afraid he lost me at the final three pages. No spoilers here, but, let's just say that the ending was far too trite and convenient. This is an extremely light read for a boring plane ride or car trip. Readers will not be taxed too greatly.
Rating:
Summary: 2 Stars for Readability, but that's about it.
Review: I think just about everyone is familiar with the name of Stephen J. Cannell. If you ever turned your television on during the late 80's and early 90's, you have already experienced his style of entertainment. Lots of gun play, explosions and over the top baddies and lackeys. "The Devil's Workshop" tries very hard to be a suspenseful action/adventure novel... however I think it suffers from one too many story lines. Cannell throws in so many stereotypical characters, it's silly. All with cheesy made-for-tv names like: "Lucky" Cunningham, Dexter Demille, Admiral Zoll and the completely over-the-top religious zealot/hobo/white supremacist (some combo!) Reverend Fannon Kincaid. Also thrown into this tale are a series of disposable background characters; none of whom advance the story very much. Here's the gist of the story... the government has illegally designed a race-specific airborne virus (scary!), but it's been discovered by grieving widow/microbiologist Stacey Richardson. The Feds try and cover up their tracks, only to have one of the creators elude their hit-squad and team up with Kincaid and his train-riding brethren. The rating of two stars is for the readability of "The Devil's Workshop." Mr. Cannell provides a fairly decent yarn, but I'm afraid he lost me at the final three pages. No spoilers here, but, let's just say that the ending was far too trite and convenient. This is an extremely light read for a boring plane ride or car trip. Readers will not be taxed too greatly.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I think Stephen J. Cannell is wonderful, however, this is a real "snoozer".
Rating:
Summary: A fleshed out Screen Play
Review: I'll admit I had trouble with this book. Stacy, the main character, is suddenly widowed when her husband's murder is labeled a suicide. The finger of blame rest s firmly on Admiral Zoll and illegal bio-weapons research being conducted at Fort Detrick under his direction. While we are supposed to like Stacy, I found her rude and unsympathetic. Most of the characters were 2 dimensional and occaisionally they just "showed up" without any ground work for why they were there. In many ways the book reads like a fleshed out screen play. As to the plot, it revolves around prions used to target specific populations based on DNA markers. This is an intriguing idea, and certainly within the realm of possibility. A prion based bio-weapon in the wrong hands is a frightening concept, and of course, that is what happens. However, the bad guys were really just bad. Character development consisted foul language, tattoos and cliche descriptions. The problem was the good guys came across the same way (minus the tattoos). If you have nothing better to do for an afternoon, it may be worth a look.
Rating:
Summary: Fast paced, action packed thriller
Review: I've enjoyed Cannell's books for some time now, and this was no exception. Admittedly, he is not a fantastic writer, as is evident by the many cliches and sometimes stilted dialogue, but he is a very good storyteller and his books are always fun to read. Typical save the world type thriller, but with an interesting hook in the Prions, biological weapons targeting specific ethnic groups. The main characters are interesting, but perhaps a little too predictable. The books strength lies in the fast paced action, and suspenseful twists. Fun read, if you overlook the flaws, which you should because Cannell tells a good tale.
Rating:
Summary: Fun but not deep enough
Review: I've read all of Mr. Cannel's books and he has proved to me and lot of others that he is a very talented writer. Reading his books is just like watching action-packed movies, but once finished or, time goes by, those books could only leave you a general impression, a not-bad fuzzy memory. Cannel is a "COMMERCIAL" writer. He just want to "Sell" his books and make lot of money from them, or futthermore, to make even more money if his books could be bought by other big movies production companies instead of his independant small studio, but keep his "Greatness" to himself only. I've seen other greatly talented writers, such as Stuart Woods, John Grisham, like Mr. Cannel, had decided to turn his shall-be greatness into only maketing oriented type, merely hoping their books would be purchased right away by those big shot studios. It's a shame because all of them could become "Great" or even "Immortal" if they could put the money aside willingly.
Rating:
Summary: Good despite military inaccuracies
Review: It was a good story, but Cannell's horrifically-inaccurate research regarding some basic military facts cost it a star. One character is said to have become an ace in Vietnam by shooting down six MiGs in an Intruder--a ground-attack bomber without defensive weapons. A flashback to DESERT STORM mentions a request for an Alert-5 (able to launch with 5 minutes' notice) Fly-By-Wire (a completely computerized flight control system) strike involving six F-16s (Air Force planes) from the USS CONSTITUTION (a Tall Ship that last saw action in the War of 1812); .... But the descriptions of hobo life were very edifying.
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