Red Frost

One of those Return-to-the-Cold War-plotlines which concerned rogue Spetsnaz units conducting terrorist hits on U.S. soil. Able Team was featured the most and best in this installment. Their opening scene of a drug hit got the ball rolling, and the Red Frost scenes were truly horrifying. A high point was the extensive hostage situation at "Large Marge's" eatery with the boys going up against inept Feds and two Spetsnaz shooters. Phoenix's scenes were sparse and the characterizations seemed flat, as compared to Able's. Again, PF's big battle scene was quite long, but the book ended up only having a mediocre finale piece.

Well the well flogged plot regarding a bio-weapon which is going to be released in the States and has to be located by the Teams and the terrorists taken down is here again but maybe after a groan read this and you will enjoy it. The author certainly writes a fine book here which you will have trouble putting down the ongoing storyline is just so good. As has been previously reviewed the section where the US retrieval team which enters the grounded Russian sub is stunning reading let me tell you and some of the descriptions of what is happening to the bodies of the infected people riveting reading. One thing absolutely stood out here for me where an infected patient goes into cardiac arrest and the paramedic straddles him and attempts to perform CPR what happens will make you cringe. The title features some very well written action scenes with a couple of new things tossed in but it would probably be fair to say that the title is a little lacking in the action scenes compared to most titles in this series but I feel the author more than makes up for that with the excellent storyline. Docked this a couple of stars as I thought Phoenix Force's section was pretty lame tagging along with the Russians and really they do very little in this title but we do get some excellent storyline featuring them and Able Team excel (what more could we want?). Whilst reading this I very much got the feeling of for want of a better term a seamless title which you will just glide through. I'm thinking maybe only one spelling error from memory and can't recall any sections where I thought to myself huh? and had to back peddle. Very enjoyable title in this series and recommended reading here folks.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It reminded me of some of the better older Able Team books. I agree with the other reviewers in how the opening scene with the sub was pretty intense. The stand off at the diner was top notch in my opinion and really well written. I could visualize the action easily and almost smell the gunpowder. I too think the motivation for the bad guys was a little thin but the Able Team scenes more than made up for this I felt. My biggest problem was Phoenix Force’s role in the story. It seemed like it was rushed in there to fit the required number of pages. It might have been a little smoother if the two story lines didn’t have as many pages between them. It felt like the flow was going good in the Able parts but stalled when it got to PF. It was like trying to race a Ferrari down a stretch of road that has a bunch of stop lights. Overall it was a fine read and ranks up there with my favorite Stony Mans

This was my first Stony Man book and I must say, I liked it alot! First, the descriptions of the scenes inside the sub when the Navy team entered to put out the fire. Then, the twist when everyone started keeling over in the triage tents and helecopters crashing everywhere! Very good writing! I liked Alan Philipson's Deathlands books, but I read this before I knew he was the author. All in all, i liked the Able team action, but the Phoenix force action in Georgia was just o.k. Isn't Georgia an independant country now? If that's true, why then are Russian Spetsnaz running around and not Georgian troops? Just small stuff like that bugged me, but really unimportant stuff. Great book!

Alan Philipson wrote the formative installments of the former action-adventure series The SOBs. He also wrote, in my opinion, the greatest action-novel that I’ve ever read, “Red Hammer Down.” “Red Hammer Down” was the revenge story of spetsnaz going after the SOBs. The protagonist mercenaries’ mission was to simply survive a horde of spetsnaz soldiers. “Red Frost” is another revenge tale carried out by spetsnaz soldiers. This time using a nasty piece of biological warfare called Red Frost. The author is in fine form here. The action scenes are masterful, especially the centerpiece action revolving around the siege of Large Marge’s fine dining establishment. The personalities are a tad flat and the specialties of each character are a bit scrambled. This is understandable and forgivable to an irregular contributor to the series. The biggest flaw was the way the simple plot unraveled into loopholes and unexplained motives. Was this more than a literal and figurative suicide mission? You be the judge. Very morbid. Very grisly stuff, but strangely authoritative and vivid. The author does not check himself when it comes to language or gore. I give Red Frost a very strong recommendation, but by no means a perfect entry.

On sheer enjoyment value I have to give this novel a 10. This is the best GE novel that I have read in a long time. I found it hard to put down in the evening, and breezed through it in three or four sittings. Yes, the overall plot is standard - bad guys have biological weapons and are going to release them in US cities - but the way the story was written was enthralling. Able Team had the most to do, and were fortunate to be in the vicinity (oh, the co-incidence) when a Russian nuclear sub grounds itself by a small US town. The rescue teams decent into the burning sub is one of the most intense sequences in the book, and from then on I was hooked. Able Teams stand off with the two Spetznaz soldiers at the greasy spoon massacre was equally tense, as was Phoenix Forces decent into the catacombs of the monastry. And, Alan Philipson makes use of Greenich Mean Time, EDT and PDT for most of his chapters, which means that the reader can see exactly how long it takes PF to get from London to Georgia, or how long the Greasy Spoon massacre took. Brilliant. It really is a shame that this is Alan Philipsons last GE novel. Minor quibbles - the nuclear submarine was supposed to be a new design, yet nobody seemed particularly excited (the Americans) or upset (the Russians) that it was grounded. No Red October stuff here. Also the villains seemed a little thin and their motivations and plot a little vague. Yes they wanted the Cold War back again, but to sacrifice yourself and never ever see if you were succesful didn't quite seem right. But otherwise it was a gret book.