Soar; A Black Ops Mission

New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, 2004. First Paperback Printing [stated]. Mass market paperback. Good. [16], 397, [3] pages. Slightly cocked. Cover worn. Some page discoloration. Includes The First Forty Hours; The Second Forty Hours; The Third Forty Hours; and an Epilogue. Also includes a map of Kazakhstan and China. Seven-time New York Times bestselling author John Weisman is one of a select company of authors to have their books on both the Times nonfiction and fiction bestseller lists. He pioneered coverage of Naval Special Warfare when he co-authored the number one New York Times bestseller Rogue Warrior, the story of Richard Marcinko and the creation of SEAL Team 6, and then conceived, created, developed, and wrote eight bestselling Rogue fictional sequels. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Seymour Hersh praised his 2004 novel Jack in the Box as "the insider's insider spy novel." Weisman's CIA short stories were chosen for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories in 1997 and 2003. His most recent CIA short fiction appears in Agents of Treachery. He reviews books on intelligence and military affairs for the Washington Times, and his analysis has appeared in AFIO's periodical Intelligencer. Derived from a Kirkus review: Army Special Forces Major Mike Ritzik and the rest of the soldier-heroes Weisman introduces find more than enough reasons to share frustration as they race to rescue a CIA team captured in the Chinese desert by Islamic Uzbeki separatist-terrorists who've stolen an old but lethal Chinese-made atom bomb. Fortunately, the straight-talking Secretary of Defense, Robert "Rocky" Rockman, as well as American President Pete Forrest, a pro-military Vietnam war veteran, put Ritzik's mission on the front burner. America is about to sign a nuclear weapons reduction treaty with China, and the CIA team, posing as filmmakers, had been planting seismic listening devices to detect underground tests. Not only are the terrorists crazed, but China has already dispatched soldiers to get its bomb back-and finding a covert CIA team along with the bad guys wouldn't look good for the US. Ritzik assembles a crack team of Delta Force specialists with names like Rowdy and Ty but gets two extra passengers: beautiful but brainy Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy Tracy Wei-Liu, the only person nearby capable of disarming the bomb; and Michael "Mickey D" Dunne, a Special Operations Air Regiment (SOAR) helicopter pilot. Snatching the CIA team from the terrorists is almost routine, but then there are Chinese troops arriving in helicopters. Only experts will be able to keep in mind the differences between, say, an HIT helicopter and a HIND gunship, but so many crackerjack good guys, stirring esprit de corps, and spectacular explosions make for a suspenseful war story.