Exit Strategy

Two things struck me in this book, the final one of the Stony Man series. First, the title should have been Bloodbath because that is exactly what it is. Second, this book should have come with a disclaimer informing the reader that it is almost a direct sequel to another Stony novel, Cold Snap which I have not read and do not possess. The characters constantly bang on about it throughout and it is extremely distracting. What also feeds into this is that the reader also needs to be completely familiar with all of GH Frost's Able Team novels as well as numerous Stony novels that are referred to, of which I have only read Extreme Arsenal. If I had been aware that such knowledge was required to understand half of what was going on I would have given this one a miss for a long while. For me it started going wrong in chapter 3 where half of the chapter was dedicated to talking about previous adventures and making huge leaps in logic and the other half was dedicated to gun porn where every weapon of every team member is described in excruciating detail. Throughout the rest of the book we are treated to exactly what these weapons can do and even more excruciating detail of what the various bullets do to the human body. Paragraphs and paragraphs of it. I was skip reading whole pages at one point where we are told about brains splattering everywhere for the 77th time. The point of the story just gets completely lost as we are forced to wade through blood and gore. I should point out that Carl Lyons is referred to as the leader of Phoenix Force at least twice and Lao Ti shows up to kill and manages to be in two places at once at one point. But there are some real good points and I kinda wish that these had been more developed. The whole senate commission looking into Stony Man Farm and the information that they had including on John Phoenix was thrilling and could have been further explored, especially as this was the final Stony Man novel. We could have seen the Farm on the brink of closure or exposure (since the bad guys knew almost everything about it). Unfortunately we get Brognola figuring out that 2 senators are the enemy because they are asking questions he does not like. No "maybe they are being played and fed info from anonymous sources". Nope, they are out and out bad guys because they do not see things from Brognola's point of view. Disappointing. It was cool to see the fictional president pooping his pants as he worries about the potential exposure, tho. But the majority of the book is just shooting and bodies exploding and general carnage which was a chore to get thru. I really wanted it to end, fed up with non stop carnage and references to numerous references to past adventures. These books are meant to entertain, and this one did not.

Solid adventure has the teams going up against renegade Mexican lawmen, mercs, government moles and a villain with ties to Unomundo. While Phoenix goes after a kidnapped reporter stuck in a Mexican prison, Able, with Lao Ti along for the ride, try to protect the reporter's children in Yuma from repeated attacks. Doug has a nice way of interjecting past missions from both teams into the narrative. And his action is always top-notch. The prison break was cool, and Lyons returns to his trusty AA-12 auto shotgun with it's icky carnage. Phoenix ends this one in spectacular fashion by re-assaulting the prison, while Able must fend off a major attack of the Yuma federal building. Great action in this one.