The Tin Man

This book is clearly better than the preceding book in the series, though it doesn't mean that it's a great book. This time Jon Masters has invented a magical armor that protects against bullets, but as always in Brown's books, all decision makers are idiots and doesn't understand that it could be useful. I think this is what Brown gets the most wrong. Decision makers are not idiots. They make mistakes and may have the wrong/different priorities, but they usually make decisions that at the time, from their point of view, make sense. Not so in Brown's books. He's just treating them as idiots which makes those interactions very unrealistic.

In this book we get to meet Patrick McLanahan's younger brother Paul McLanahan, rookie police officer.

I last read this book in July 2007 and it got me hooked on to Dale Brown's books, have since read the prior six Patrick McLanahan books and now re-read this one.

Having read books 1-6 in a reasonably short period of time by the time I was wrapping up book 6, Shadows of Steel, the plot line was feeling a little stale in that there they were basically variances of a plan which said was some crisis overseas, something would happen to the guys, then they'd go and launch a secret off-the-books mission. Whilst entertaining if you're going to be writing multiple books in a series there needs to be more and I'm pleased to say that The Tin Man offers such.

This time around there's no overseas conflict, no war, no conferences with the President and show more National Security Advisor etc, instead we visit Patrick and his brother Paul in their home town of Sacramento where a terrorist crime wave is taking place. Whilst the protective suit featured in the novel is in the science fiction end of the technothriller spectrum it's well implemented and is not absurdly unbelievable.

Overall it's a great addition to the series and we see more depth in Patrick than we had in the past, not to mention that it steers the series out of stale territory - seems like the 3 year gap was used wisely by the author in putting this book together.

Would read a third time. show less

It's about a former/occasional secret agent who works for a high-tech company. When his brother, a rookie cop, is injured, our hero becomes The Tin Man--wearing a suit made of the company's new bulletproof material and enhanced with some other high-tech gadgets, he's a cross between a vigilante and a superhero.

It's not all whiz-bang high tech action--there's a human side, particularly with the brother's serious injuries. And using the suit isn't without consequences--there's physical pain, and increasing urges toward violence. An alert reader could draw parallels with the effects of vigilantism in general--but this really isn't a book you read to contemplate the human condition.

Mostly, it's a rollercoaster thrill ride, a James-Bond-ish show more page-turner, an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. The Tin Man didn't turn me into a Dale Brown fan, but I won't avoid his books, either. show less

a good read

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