Dead Hand

Rating:
Summary: Terribly disappointing
Review: It has been a long time since I have been this disappointed by an author whose work I used to love.

In DEAD HAND, Mr Coyle produced an indifferent plot, paper thin characters, no focal point, and an awful ending.

There appeared to be no particular main character, the combat scenes were nowhere nearly as descriptive as they have been in his other novels, and he ended the book leaving numerous loose ends.

No need for me to go on, other than to say that I recommend passing on this book. It was awful.

Rating:
Summary: Coyle grows with his success
Review: Many writers who acheive success seem to shrink and rely on increasingly tired formulae. Not Harold Coyle. His mastery of the craft continues to grow. "Dead Hand" turned out to be a two-night read. If I didn't have a deadline project to deal with, it would have been read in a single night. The plot spans the globe. His use of an extraordinary device sounds and feels plausible. He manages to imbue eight (8!) major characters with lives of their own, in addition to a slew of minor characters, passing through and adding credence to the story. The combat, necessarily, is not on a grand scale. Rather the main conflict is between small, highly-trained and very deadly commando and special forces teams. The conclusion is what it should be: small steps lead to intense combat and believable heroic acts by friend and foe alike. The one-page epilogue compels you think about the sacrifices made by so many unheralded warriors to preserve or acheive freedom. Reading this novel provides the same thrill as first readings of Clancy and Ludlum, before they became "production line" writers. If you enjoy combat thrillers laced with global politics, "Dead Hand" will provide you with a fine, exciting experience.

Jerry

Rating:
Summary: Save your money
Review: Not much of a plot, not much action.

Rating:
Summary: Dead Hand
Review: NOTE TO FUTURE REVIEWERS: There are no excuses for giving this book more than one star. Save yourself some time; dont' read the book, but log on and give it one star.

Rating:
Summary: "Great Characters Make Up For Little Action"
Review: This book didn't have the same amount of military action as other Coyle novels like "Team Yankee" or "Sword Point," but with all the great characters it didn't matter. One of my favorites had to be Sergeant-Chef Stanislaus Dombrowski of the French Foreign Legion. He provided a great insight into the kind of brotherhood formed among troops in elite units. I also really liked Russian commando Colonel Demetre Orlov. He's what I would call subtly ruthless and loyal to the State, until he's ordered to go after the General in charge of the Perimeter missiles about to go off due to an asteroid strike in Siberia. Toward the end of the book Orlov is seriously confused as to what his course of action should be.

Coyle did an excellent job fleshing out all his characters. Some of his descriptions of the devastation caused by the asteroid and the harsh conditions the NATO special ops units must face were pretty good. Not too many combat scenes, but Coyle made up for it at the end with a rollercoaster ride of a battle at the last Perimeter silo. The epilogue where one SAS officer gives his view on duty to one's country perfectly summed up the theme of this book.

Coyle has proven that he has grown as a writer. Quite frankly, I think some of his characters in "Dead Hand" were better than Colonel Scott Dixon and company in previous novels. Bully for Mr. Coyle and "Dead Hand."

Rating:
Summary: "Great Characters Make Up For Little Action"
Review: This book didn't have the same amount of military action as other Coyle novels like "Team Yankee" or "Sword Point," but with all the great characters it didn't matter. One of my favorites had to be Sergeant-Chef Stanislaus Dombrowski of the French Foreign Legion. He provided a great insight into the kind of brotherhood formed among troops in elite units. I also really liked Russian commando Colonel Demetre Orlov. He's what I would call subtly ruthless and loyal to the State, until he's ordered to go after the General in charge of the Perimeter missiles about to go off due to an asteroid strike in Siberia. Toward the end of the book Orlov is seriously confused as to what his course of action should be.

Coyle did an excellent job fleshing out all his characters. Some of his descriptions of the devastation caused by the asteroid and the harsh conditions the NATO special ops units must face were pretty good. Not too many combat scenes, but Coyle made up for it at the end with a rollercoaster ride of a battle at the last Perimeter silo. The epilogue where one SAS officer gives his view on duty to one's country perfectly summed up the theme of this book.

Coyle has proven that he has grown as a writer. Quite frankly, I think some of his characters in "Dead Hand" were better than Colonel Scott Dixon and company in previous novels. Bully for Mr. Coyle and "Dead Hand."

Rating:
Summary: Is there an option for partial stars?
Review: This could have been a very entertaining story if Mr. Coyle had refrained from spending half the book blatantly preaching about the nobility of the common soldier.

Rating:
Summary: Great concept - shame about the writing
Review: What happens to an automatic nuclear response system when an asteroid hits Siberia, causing destruction similar to multiple hydrogen bombs? And can a multi-national special forces team survive the inferno, let alone disarm the threat? It sounds a really promising subject for a military thriller, but this book just doesn't deliver on its promise. When I first read Harold Coyle's "Team Yankee", I was enthralled. Set in a similar situation to Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising", Coyle's book zoomed in on a single US armoured unit and followed its fortunes throughout the whole of a Soviet attack on Western Europe. Although obviously of interest only to war story fans, "Team Yankee" was as close to perfect of its kind as I ever hope to read. OK, so how does "Dead Hand" compare? The concept is just as good, and rather more imaginative. Even the plotting makes sense, but my enjoyment of the book was completely spoiled by what I can only describe as very poor writing. How could this book have been written by the author of "Team Yankee"? I can only imagine it was written in a tearing hurry, or under some similar difficulty. Infelicities abound; much of the dialogue (like Clancy's in his last one or two books) rings false; and foreign words are frequently misspelt. If you think I am exaggerating, by all means try your look with this book. I actually threw my copy away after reading about half of it - something I hardly ever do.