Rolling Thunder

I enjoyed this one. A realistic plot (although the motivations of the villains was not explained; what did they hope to achieve?) but no far fetched plot involving robots or space shuttles. The two teams are knocked about and have to work with members missing or seriously injured. The terrorists are well developed which was good (I disagree with a previous reviewer on that). The Iraqi's were a bit lame and could have been left out. But one star off for the stupid hospital scene which everybody else has commented on. The same hospital, yes, but the same hospital room? Seriously?

Yep I thoroughly enjoyed this one as well. Great plot and terrific storyline with some very good characters introduced who blend in nicely with the ongoing and add in a few twists and surprises and you will be entertained reading this. Was going to give this one a nine rating but the hospital scenes are ridiculous with the terrorist not only ending up in the same hospital as Gary but in the same room next to him and the farce of McCarter just happening to come out of amnesia at the precise right time to save the day. Sure this is fiction but come on lets try to stay within the bounds of reality. That minor niggle aside recommended reading here you could do a lot worse in this series.

“Rolling Thunder” was a joy to read. It read like a true novel, a complete piece of work with characterization and detailed involvement on both sides of the law. The movements of Stony Man were as detailed as the movement of the BLM. In the opening encounter, Phoenix Force loses four members to various injuries: a stabbing, a shooting, blown hamstrings and a concussion. Able Team is down to two people because Schwarz was injured in prior action. We never see him. As Phoenix Force slowly recovers, Able Team picks it up where the others left off. The negatives about this novel? There are too many new people to keep track of. Since this is the more realistic of the Stony Man novels, people get away and have different sources of motivations. There is also a 25-page stretch starting at page 135 that almost killed my momentum through the book. This passage introducing four new characters, with motivations, agendas and plotting. It did not go anywhere. Once I moved pass this hump, the rest flowed downhill. Another negative would be the dumb coincidence of having an ill-fated BLM member to be assigned to that one room, never mind the number of hospitals and rooms in all of Spain. The odds of that happening, would be closer to winning the lottery. The last Ron Renauld novel I read was “Dead Zone”, an Able Team novel, seventeen years ago. He is much improved. His Able Team entries were, like this novel, strong in background, detail and dialogue. Unfortunately, they were also very light on the action and slight on scope. He has more action and more at stake in “Rolling Thunder” than his entire Able Team run.

This reminded me of a SuperBolan by Renauld where the villains were too fleshed out. There was a lot of book time given to the bad guys, and I thought it slowed down the pace of the book. It was quite different to have half the guys get knocked either temporarily or completely out of action for the duration of the novel. James gets seriously wounded, McCarter gets temporary amnesia, Manning blows out both his hamstrings, and Encizo gets a minor shoulder wound. That leaves Lyons, Pol and Hawkins to go through the motions. The action scenes were "okay", but nothing to knock my socks off. I felt it would have been a much better novel if the bad guys hadn't been fleshed out to the extent they were, and more focus given to the Stony Men.