But not that bad. I love Alex Hawke and his crew (especially Stokely Jones), and I enjoyed catching up with them since it's been awhile since the last book, but I found this book didn't grip me like the others have. It had a slow start, but once the action started, it got better. This book is about the Russian threat. It brings back all the cold war politics, but they are a lot more of a threat in this book because they have lots of money and access to technological advances that they didn't have in the sixties. Alex and Stoke and their group of ex-Navy Seals perform a daring hostage rescue and I think that was the best part of this book. Anyway, Hawke is a great creation, and I can't wait to read more. ( )

Typical Hawke thriller. I was surprised by the explicit sex scenes. The story was pretty good and well told. ( )

Much better than I thought. Since Clancy seems to have jumped the shark we have to find someone new. ( )

This is quite possibly the WORST book I have ever read. And that says something because I read about 30 crime, suspense and mystery novels a year, and a LOT of them are disappointing. But this is undoubtedly the worst in as long as I can remember.

The sole redeeming feature of the book is an imaginative central conceit, i.e., that cheap personal computers made by the tens of millions in Russia and sold all over the world are actually networked explosive devices that an autocratic new Russian ruler uses to blackmail the West. That's as good as it gets.

The rest of the book is a laughable muddle. Characters so cliched that the word doesn't do justive to how flimsy and one-sided they are. Everything is painted in the starkest blacks and whites. I would compare the book's narrative nuance and complexity to a lesser Hardy Boys novel, but that would be unfair to the Hardy Boys. (I honestly would not have been surprised if Biff Henderson had made a cameo appearance around about page 375.) The dialogue reads like a 500 page entry in the annual "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition.

What a mess. Steer clear. Life is too short ot waste on drivel like this. ( )