Barracuda 945

Rating:
Summary: Finally ran out of ideas
Review: Patrick Robinson started his series in the submarine genre with a splash with thrillers such as Nimitz Class and HMS Unseen, truly enjoyable reads. This era of the series died painfully in Barracuda 945.
Mr. Robinson has foregone adventure for preachiness. His focus is now on the badness of Democratic presidents. This could be overlooked if he made the point and moved on. Instead, he comes back time and again to reiterate his same words (I hesitate to call them ideas) to exhaustion. He uses the narrator and multiple characters to say the same thing repeatedly, removing any interest the reader has in the story.
The door is left open for a sequel, but unless I read a review to indicate Mr. Robinson has returned to his roots and left the preaching to televangelists, I will miss my first Patrick Robinson book if and when it is released.

Rating:
Summary: Not Politically Correct
Review: There are two big premises you have to swallow to get the plot started off. First, that British SAS Major Ray Kerman (raised in England for more than 25 years) would suddenly switch sides and join Hamas and return to a culture he barely conciously remembers. Second, that destroying a major part of the U.S. oil production industry would make us -withdraw- from the Middle East. If you can suspend your disbelief to get over those two mountains, the rest of the hills aren't as hard to climb.

One premise that I completely agree with is that terrorists can win the "War on Terror" by focusing on destroying -things-, not people. That is a basis for the operation pursued by Ray Kerman, aka Ravi Rashood. Killing people brings down the wrath of the hurt nation very quickly. To avoid this, force them to spend tons of money on security and on replacing damaged -things-. Keep attacking infrastructure until they have no more money to pursue you because it's costing so much to guard and secure resources at home.

The action is slow getting started, but finally moves along into a fact pace just before you hit the end of the book. I was quite uneasy when starting the book because it focuses so much on the villan. We hardly even meet the "good guys" for over 100 pages. I kept thinking to myself, "If this is the main character whom I'm supposed to empathize with, then this is totally the wrong book for me!" There are quite a few characters who make comments that are not politically correct for a Democrat reader, but then not every reader is a Democrat! I happened to agree with many of the comments and thought several were quite witty.

Rating:
Summary: Nice plot, horrible writing
Review: What do you say when an author takes a good plot and mangles the execution?
First, the research is falty. The author has no idea how the US would react to this type of threat. Has he nbever heard of AWACS?
Second, the author seems to think more words are better. A little background is nice during a story, but why pad everything?
Third, a black and white view of politicians is both childish and self-defeating. The author made the characters seem clueless in his voice over political tirades.
Fourth, misplaced jargon makes the story ludicrous in places. How many English/Iranians use California pop expressions?
Fifth, the dialog in general is pittiful. Words and phrases chosen for educated characters are weak, trite, and Bush league. (Sorry, could not resist.)