Rating: 
Summary: Great plot potential, but poor and choppy in its delivery
Review: Harold Coyle has had a very good reputation in the technothriller genre for creating some masterful stories. From "Team Yankee" to "The Ten Thousand" - and even the recent "God's Children" - he has displayed a knack for engaging tales that skillfully mix the raw emotion of the soldier in combat with the technical horrors of battle. He has written a few clunkers along the way, and sadly, "Dead Hand" is one of them.I was very eager to read this book, because the plot synopsis seemed so intriguing. Political unrest in Russia, a rogue military leader possessing a nuclear arsenal, and gruesome operations in a post-apocalyptic countryside (courtesy of an asteroid); it all appeared to have the elements of a great story. But right from the start, the plot was spoiled by a choppy delivery. The pattern seemed to be a series of "snapshots", or - more specifically - a bunch of unfinished short stories. Rather than setting up a story, or later folding into the main story, the reader felt that they were lurching from one soldier or unit to another, with no real cohesiveness or purpose. It felt to me that nothing was truly fleshed out or fully explained. The result of this choppy delivery was that the main plot was moving along, and the reader was being dropped in at various points along the way to see what was going on, then yanked back out to be dropped into the story a little further along the way. I felt like I was missing pieces of the story, especially since there seemed to me to be several allusions to recent events that weren't included in the narration. The final, climatic battle scene - like the rest of the book - seemed to be rushed and not developed, and then ended abruptly, leaving us to come to our own conclusion about what happened. The book ended just a little over 300 pages, and seemed to be written as if Mr. Coyle had set a page limit and was trying to fit the plot inside of that. As with most who have reviewed this book previous to me, I noted several typos and minor technical errors that were unlike Mr. Coyle, suggesting he was rushed and a little less careful with his research. Again, it seemed like he was trying to wedge a big story into a set page limit. All in all, "Dead Hand" was a poor effort by Mr. Coyle. I wish he - and/or his editors - had been a little more careful in putting this story together. The story needed to be expanded to more fully take advantage of a unique and promising plot idea. Instead, we received a choppy, incomplete work that left a lot to be desired. I hope Mr. Coyle has taken extra care in his latest work, and in his future work.
Rating: 
Summary: A Change in Approach
Review: Harold Coyle, VMI graduate and former armor officer in the US Army has written a group of novels that have captured the loyalty of many readers. I am among that group of loyal fans who seek out his books and then devour them as soon as I buy them. For the most part, I have always liked his story lines and the characters he creates. DEAD HAND, is another of those books that I enjoyed, but found flawed by the all too obvious technical errors that are included within the text. As other reviewers here have noted, Coyle and his editors were delinquent in their fact-checking and this greatly diminished my enjoyment of the story. Continuing to place the SAS Headquarters of Hereford in Scotland is probably the most egregious error. Any soldier or hobbyist who knows anything about the SAS will note that mistake and snicker in derision. Where Coyle does a great job with this story line is through the use of his imagination in creating a joint and multi-national force to solve the problem that serves as the plotline for the novel. Basically, Russia, its central government severely weakened by corruption and the huge land mass of the old Soviet Union is faced with a huge dilemma. The first is that the central government must deal with a renegade general in Siberia who is in control and possession of several ICBM locations. While that is bad enough, the old Soviet government had built their missile fields with doomsday systems. Under the assumption that the Soviet government in Moscow might not survive a nuclear exchange with the USA and the UK, they installed "dead hand systems" in their strategic rocket forces. Designed to launch even without human intervention, they would destroy the United States and the West that had prevailed in a nuclear war, probably as the result of a first strike. What creates the problem for the Russian government, the democracies in the West and for the men who must disarm this system is that the dead hand system works off seismic shocks. Originally engineered to launch as a result of the shocks that occurred as part of nuclear detonations elsewhere in Siberia, the system appears to have been activated as the result of the impact caused by a large meteor that has struck earth. Knowing about the system and the renegade general has prompted western military planners to create a multi-national force of elite troops to disarm the most dangerous of the missile fields and the general commanding them. At the same time, the Russian government in Moscow has dispatched its own troops to terminate the general's command and return the missile field to government control. Coyle does a fine job of building and developing each of the characters. He includes several from the 2eme Regiment Etranger Parachutiste (2eme REP), the 22nd SAS Regiment, US Army Special Forces and veterans of SPETSNAZ. These different military organizations ironically share a common mission and Coyle places a great deal of emphasis and descriptive narration on providing the reader with significant details of their planning, the parachute drops, their road marches and so on. In some cases though, the detail overwhelms the progress of the story and only serves to slow down the pacing of the plotline. Because of his "padding" of details, this book does not read as quickly as Coyle's earlier efforts. In addition, there were sections where I was tempted to give up on the story altogether. I did not and read the novel to completion probably more out of curiosity to see how it ended and which characters survived. Without giving away the ending, I think readers of this novel will be somewhat surprised by the approach Coyle uses in his final denouement. It is both unusual and effective and it leaves no doubt in the reader's mind that there has been a definitive final outcome. While I cannot rave about this offering from Harold Coyle, I am glad I finished. I was dismayed at the factual errors, but at the same time found myself overlooking them as I sought to reach the ending. Suspense is sporadic, but the ending is well done. Mr. Coyle has departed from his formulaic retelling of the Dixon family saga with an up and down ride into the world of elite special ops troops. That makes the book worth investing some time with.
Rating:
Summary: A Change in Approach
Review: Harold Coyle, VMI graduate and former armor officer in the US Army has written a group of novels that have captured the loyalty of many readers. I am among that group of loyal fans who seek out his books and then devour them as soon as I buy them. For the most part, I have always liked his story lines and the characters he creates. DEAD HAND, is another of those books that I enjoyed, but found flawed by the all too obvious technical errors that are included within the text. As other reviewers here have noted, Coyle and his editors were delinquent in their fact-checking and this greatly diminished my enjoyment of the story. Continuing to place the SAS Headquarters of Hereford in Scotland is probably the most egregious error. Any soldier or hobbyist who knows anything about the SAS will note that mistake and snicker in derision. Where Coyle does a great job with this story line is through the use of his imagination in creating a joint and multi-national force to solve the problem that serves as the plotline for the novel. Basically, Russia, its central government severely weakened by corruption and the huge land mass of the old Soviet Union is faced with a huge dilemma. The first is that the central government must deal with a renegade general in Siberia who is in control and possession of several ICBM locations. While that is bad enough, the old Soviet government had built their missile fields with doomsday systems. Under the assumption that the Soviet government in Moscow might not survive a nuclear exchange with the USA and the UK, they installed "dead hand systems" in their strategic rocket forces. Designed to launch even without human intervention, they would destroy the United States and the West that had prevailed in a nuclear war, probably as the result of a first strike. What creates the problem for the Russian government, the democracies in the West and for the men who must disarm this system is that the dead hand system works off seismic shocks. Originally engineered to launch as a result of the shocks that occurred as part of nuclear detonations elsewhere in Siberia, the system appears to have been activated as the result of the impact caused by a large meteor that has struck earth. Knowing about the system and the renegade general has prompted western military planners to create a multi-national force of elite troops to disarm the most dangerous of the missile fields and the general commanding them. At the same time, the Russian government in Moscow has dispatched its own troops to terminate the general's command and return the missile field to government control. Coyle does a fine job of building and developing each of the characters. He includes several from the 2eme Regiment Etranger Parachutiste (2eme REP), the 22nd SAS Regiment, US Army Special Forces and veterans of SPETSNAZ. These different military organizations ironically share a common mission and Coyle places a great deal of emphasis and descriptive narration on providing the reader with significant details of their planning, the parachute drops, their road marches and so on. In some cases though, the detail overwhelms the progress of the story and only serves to slow down the pacing of the plotline. Because of his "padding" of details, this book does not read as quickly as Coyle's earlier efforts. In addition, there were sections where I was tempted to give up on the story altogether. I did not and read the novel to completion probably more out of curiosity to see how it ended and which characters survived. Without giving away the ending, I think readers of this novel will be somewhat surprised by the approach Coyle uses in his final denouement. It is both unusual and effective and it leaves no doubt in the reader's mind that there has been a definitive final outcome. While I cannot rave about this offering from Harold Coyle, I am glad I finished. I was dismayed at the factual errors, but at the same time found myself overlooking them as I sought to reach the ending. Suspense is sporadic, but the ending is well done. Mr. Coyle has departed from his formulaic retelling of the Dixon family saga with an up and down ride into the world of elite special ops troops. That makes the book worth investing some time with.
Rating:
Summary: Sadly Disappointing
Review: Having read Coyle for many years and been amazed at his ability to transfer the feeling of men in combat, I was disappointed by this offering. It reads like a B Movie or an Episode of the old "Combat" TV show. Nothing is new, everything is old hat, you can just about write the story as you read along. The tough Scotsman, the soldier with the misunderstanding wife, the soldier torn between duty and his mentor. Way under the level that I would expect from Coyle. It seems as if Mr. Coyle had to deliver a book, any book, to his publishers, but he delivered a novella. If you reduce the type font and take out the myriad blank pages, the stories maybe 200 pages, and not very compelling. At no time did there seem to be any suspense or real danger that the "ultimate" would happen. If he's just going to go through the motions, he should at least put a warning in the preface. The title says it all in more ways than Coyle planned.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing in many ways
Review: I agree with the other reviewers who have labled this book a sad effort from a stellar writer of military fiction. The premise of the story, that Russia would allow a NATO force to invade its own territory to solve an internal dispute, is almost laughable. Never mind that all of this takes place during one of the worst natural disasters in centuries, where the Russian government would probably be doing its best just to keep up with relief efforts. Probably more troubling, though, is the complete lack of editing or proofreading. My copy of the book contains nearly one hundred basic spelling and grammatical errors (i.e. "loosing" instead of "losing"). The only reason this gets even one star is that I like Coyle's early works. Get this from the library, but don't pay money for it.
Rating:
Summary: Not the Harold Coyle I Am Used To
Review: I have greatly enjoyed most of Coyle's books in the past, so I expected more of the same in this book. How wrong I was. The plot concept is ripe for quality action and writing, but Coyle instead spends more time waxing poetic about the philosophies of command and the ethos of combat. Of the 298 pages in the book, maybe 8 are vintage Coyle; the rest are drawn out editorials and dull character descriptions. There is next to no character development whatsoever; aside from their respective nationalities, each of the main characters is indistinguishable for the other. I honestly struggled to find the will to finish this book, and I agree with other reviewers that it appears that Coyle was either on a deadline or his new publishing house has an axe to grind.
Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: I have read all of Harold Coyle novels todate and eagerly looked forward to his latest. Unfortunately , this one is not up to his usual high marks. His characters lack depth and it is almost as if he had tried to put too many into too small a book. It reads more like an outline than a novel.French Foreign Legion, SAS, Special Forces, Russian Commandos,Falling Comets, Political Upheaval, all too much for such a short book.Coyle should go back to writing about what he knows best," Soldiering!"
Anyone of the characters that he describes , so briefly, would have made a great story. I do hope his next is back up to par with his earlier novels.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of my time
Review: I wasted my time and my money by reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: Complete and Utter Rubbish
Review: I wish Amazon would allow 0 stars, because this piece of junk (I am hesitant to call it a book) really deserves it. Although the plot outline had potential, the implementation is horrific. Assuming that you can get by the fact that the proofreaders must have all been on vacation the day this book was run through the mill, you still have to pick out morsels of plot from the cliches, platitudes, and sterotypes that make up the majority of the text. You've got your faultless vetran soldiers who never make a mistake; your injured comrades who smile through their horrific wounds and give their all for god and country; your evil wives who force brave, dedicated soldiers to choose between them and the country they love; your untested leaders yearning for the chance to prove themselves; and your waffling politicians who try to interefere with the honorable actions of the military that selflessly serves them. Characters spend so much of their time thinking about how honorable their job is and how they love protecting the ideals of the free world that the rest of the plot falls completely to the wayside. You know that "asteroid impact" that's the setup of the whole thing? It merits a page or two. The russian "silence to NATO queries" that is supposed to build up the tension? Its mentioned as an aside and after the fact. The "renegade russian general" that is the big baddie? He's actually completely irrelevant. The "horrific drop into enemey territory"? That's actually done completely offscreen. And of course, the soldiers themsleves are all such stoic professional warriors that they are pretty much interchangable. When one of the main characters goes "hors de combat" (as Coyle phrases it over and over and over) you don't really care, as the characters are too flat to generate much empathy and 20 clones of the poor guy exist anyway. Essentially, don't waste your time or money on this thing. Its not worth either.
Rating:
Summary: Decline of Mr. Coyle
Review: In my opinion, Coyle's previous book - "God's Children" began the demise of what I once considered a "damn good" soldier's author and a real soldier. This one - "Dead Hand"sinks Mr. Coyle to a new low...come on Harold...you are better that this! What happend to the tales of real soldiers, gutting out the grind of REAL combat in a realistic scenario...Russians, SAS, Foreign Legion, Special Forces, asteroids, and nuclear missiles indeed. Let Tom Clancy, Dale Brown, and the like delve into fantasy. You, Mr. Coyle need to write about what you really know best...real soldiers...the battalion commanders and sergeants major, company grade officers, first sergeants, squad leaders and platoon sergeants, tank crews, and plain old straight leg infantry.
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