Eye of the Storm

Well the plot continues and unfortunately this middle instalment fails badly to continue the excitement raised in the first. Much of this title featuring the big guy at least is basically a war story not really my cup of tea but I really enjoyed the Able Team and Phoenix Force sections so I'm thinking yep this is a pretty good middle title until........... Bolan's second in charge Eldridge goes insane? Hey I haven't read the third instalment yet and maybe this explained but come on this is the commanding officer actively killing his fellow soldiers who don't happen to agree with his religeous views actively supported by his staff? None of the other soldiers under his command happen to notice that hey when you have an interview with the boss you never seem to return? Again and again and again umm the soldiers stationed in this command are disappearing at a rapid rate. The invasion of Israel and the stealing of the nukes? hmm the title is heading downhill at this stage. Well what can I say it doesn't end with anything stunning so we can only look forward to the third instalment for a good finish. Middle of the trilogy so if you have read part one you have no choice if you are going to read part three but fear not it is a fair read.

With this book being the middle of a trilogy, it is a little different from most books in that it serves as a bridge between a biginning of a larger story and the ending of it. I thought it was done very well, the only thing I struggled with was the focus jumping from location to location frequently. Because this is more of a Stony Man trilogy, we have AT, PF, and Bolan in their seperate scenes, so the storyline is rather interupted. I would recommend reading this book in as few sittings as possible to get a better reading experience from it. Each of the teams has several good scenes in this book, keeping the action and the pace steaming along nicely. I wonder if Mel Odom had help in the writing of this novel, because it seemed like portions of this book were written with a different style from his usual writing. The thing that made this book unique was the weird scenes involving Eldridge. He was having some supernatural experiences, I guess it was all in his head, but these scenes were something I've never really seen in a Bolan book before. Very interesting, it makes me wonder what will become of this in the conclusion of the trilogy.

Not as good as Storm Warning. Three major problems for me - one the Florida politician scene seemed like it should have been in a Destroyer novel. Sorry but having the politician having people sign waivers about not suing if there is an attack while he speaks is just plain dumb. That is fine for a Destroyer novel but not a Executioner novel. Another big problem was Eldridge. Here is the US second command in Kuwait and he is on a messianic delusions. There is enough going on without this sidestory. I assume this will be a major plotpoint in book 3 but I would rather it focus on the Iraq/KGB storyline. The biggest problem is this. What in gods name is plans for stealing a Isreali nuclear bomb doing in the US army's hand. This does not make sense. This should be CIA only info and maybe a tiny covert team be given the info only and only if the CIA gives direct orders to attack. This is not the type of plans to have basically sitting around. This is the type of information that only a handful of people should know about since information leaking would have devestating effects on the mideast - Isreal having a nuclear bomb. For Eldridge - a Colonel to know that means everyone up his command chain would know + Defense department + CIA - too dangerous for that many people to know. This part of the story was illogical. It still was a fun novel and a good bridge novel to the third novel. Hope Storm Burst is good.

This is the middle book of the "Storm Trilogy". It's very disappointing. As the US prepares to go to war with Iraq here in 2002, it's interesting to see how it happened in the Bolan universe in 1992. It should be a great read, "ripped from the headlines" and all. But there is so little plot that it truly disappoints. Every other page is a gunfight. Obviously, Mack Bolan uses weapons, and there are battles to be expected, but this was over-the-top. Also, the realism of the earlier books is gone. This one has Bolan serving as weapons officer on an attack chopper while having two different conversations. This one has the president deciding that of all the diplomats and experienced negotiators, Bolan is the best one to send to Iraq. "Eye of the Sotrm" os just a little too unrealistic with nowhere near enough plot to sustain it.

This one was good, but I liked the first one much more.