Citadel of Fear

The good first - this was one rollercoaster ride of an adventure. There was hardly space to breathe and I found myself wanting to read more Chuck Roger's Stony Man adventures (there are only 3). The story moves from Poland to Sweden, back to Poland then onto Belize followed by a quick visit to the Californian coast, and the picture on the cover really does happen. The guest characters are over the top, especially Propenko and Demi, followed by Paulus although they all seemed to get man crushes on Calvin very quickly. The t-shirt joke resonated throughout the book. The action was intense, especially the scenes in Poland. Just, wow! And Able Team go to Poland! The bad second - start with the back cover. Out of the author's control but what is described is only the final third of the book. The country the action takes place in is Belize and not Grenada as stated, and thanks for giving the plot away as to what is being 3D printed. Obviously written by monkeys. Why did Poland happen? What was the point? Why were the villains there? Why was the Game Room there? Despite being the best part of the book, the Polish part made no sense at all. It didn't advance the villain's agenda at all, despite Phoenix Force being there a week already. Then there was Liberty City. After the intensity of Poland, Liberty was like running into a brick wall. The action turned into slow moving storyline and there was little of it. And the ending off San Francisco was very rushed. But the biggest problem I had was the character flaws of Phoenix Force. Rafael is now called Fish, and Manning is known as Gummer. The whole book was Fish! Fish! Fish! Gummer! Gummer! Gummer! Where did these rubbish nicknames come from? We are not told. But it was jarring. Then we learn that, and I quote from page 269 "McCarter was SAS, Her Majesty's Royal Navy" and on page 290 "as a sailor himself". McCarter has never been a sailor, he was always a soldier. Where did this rubbish come from and how did the editors let it through? For the Polish segment alone this book would have been a 10 but the errors I listed above brought it down to a solid 8.

A lot of tongue-in-cheek humor and some of those wild and crazy characters gave this one a lift. Phoenix and Able work together most of the time to stop an organization with high-tech gadgets. The interaction with the teams and a bad guy turned good, Propenko was quite enjoyable. The other standout was all the bromancing with Demi Papas, the Wolf of Wall Street clone. The guy was a total hoot. Amidst all this, the battles drawn up were extensive, but just average overall. The failed attempt to attack Liberty City seemed to be the most enjoyable. And I'm guessing Mr. Rogers' nod to one of the possible final targets (a 49ers playoff game from a book published in 2015) was a joke? Really, Chuck? Okay, I got a kick out of it. Not the best Stony Man, but the humor, paying homage to different movies and books, and the bromancing between characters made it a good read.