Risk Factor

I was surprised to discover that this book was not a run-of-the-mill also-ran entry as I feared it might be. Schmidt wrote a terrific action yarn here, and managed to avoid at least some of his usual tropes throughout the story. There are four locations as the stage for the action, starting on Long Island. Moscow, Pakistan, and Yemen close out the adventure. Lots of factions to keep track of, but the central villains are the Russian mafia family, and everything is connected to them and their schemes. The writing really shines in between the action scenes, and the buckets of blood, while present, are kept to a minimum as the storytelling unfolds. My favorite scene might be the tense drama between the factions in Yemen with Pavlovka. While a minor character and not really crucial to the overall plot, I thought this was an excellent section in the book. Bolan teams up with Grimaldi as his sidekick for the whole novel, with the predictable air support at the end. I would rank this among the author's better books, I recommend it.

Goodness me, a Dan Schmidt novel that doesn't include rivers of blood and ludicrous gibs? Colour me surprised. A lot of the descriptions are fairly ordinary and there isn't much gore here. Although the plot is ordinary at best, Schmidt created an interesting group of villains in the Drakovich family: papa Yuri and his sons, Gregor and Vlad. The dynamic between them made for some great reading, even if Vlad - the story's main villain - is the weakest of the three. Unlike most of Schmidt's villains, they aren't wacky-ass psychopaths and actually have some personality, or as much as villains in the series are allowed to have. Like all of Schmidt's yarns, the story is wall-to-wall action but unfortunately it really starts to taper off during the warehouse raid near the end. It was like Schmidt lost interest or ran out of steam. This has the odd effect of the brothers being killed off in the most anticlimactic fashion: Gregor is killed during said warehouse duel, although it's never stated if Bolan killed him or if a stray shot from Vlad's gun was the culprit, and then Vlad gets offed at the very end while trying to use a child as a hostage. The kicker? Yuri not only made Bolan work his ass off to kill him during their gunfight, but managed to survive getting smoked by a fucking grenade. Honestly, the book would have been a 9 if it ended there. The storyline has been done before and Schmidt doesn't try to make it interesting, which is disappointing because he came up with some great ideas in the past. The scenes with the Saudi prince weren't all that exciting and bogged things down, but his death at the hands of his own Russian mercenary was a nice twist. Crimson Tide had a similar problem, where a subplot was introduced but not given any room to develop. In this case, the Saudi prince's dealings with the Drakoviches and why he wants to blow up a couple of cities is never explained to the reader. I wouldn't say this is essential reading, but if you like villains with personality then this is a good choice.

Well firstly let me say I found this very hard to read. Why ? I don't actually know as I thought the plot was okay, I thought the characters introduced were okay I even liked the dialogue between the Russian brothers and the family thing after the old man got taken out by Mack. But I found it just dragged along and I thought the brothers were taken out pretty ordinarly at the end. I'm thinking like I would presume most readers that the main character's/villian's should be taken out as part of the actual story line not in the umm other non selective of body count sections, a little bit of action/suspense. So ? It's okay, it reads fine with a reasonable plot/character description, fine action scenes and everything comes together at the end. Well ? 5 stars it's an okay read but just didn't do anything for me.

A slightly above average novel. This novel was brought slightly from average because of the Drakovich family. Not the brightest family going but family loyality and belief that a father's wishes were of absolute importance was done well. I liked the scenes between Gregor and Vlad and how they reacted when they heard their father was killed and how it went from jealousy to bonding. The Drakovich partner Mr S.. was just one unlucky dude who kept geting knocked out and captured by Mack. I also liked the fact that Jack Grimaldi was one hand to back up Mack. Poor Jack when can he sleep - shooting the bad guys then flying to Moscow and driving Mack around then to flying directly to Pakistan and then Yemen. Does this guy sleep? Also using blacksuits that Stony Man had was a good idea - tired of Executioner having Able and Phoenix Force all the time. Just some nameless blacksuits that backed Mack up in Yemen. The story itself is not a great story but the russians did make good foes especially the family dynamics. I didn't totally understand why the Saudi prince wanted to nuke two Saudi cities though. But then he was a drug addict.

A fairly decent entry into the series. Grimaldi's teaming up with Bolan for most of the ground action was about the most standout part of the book.

A decent, action-packed book with a great finale. The action scenes themselves didn't seem as crisp as previous Schmidt books I'd read, and the plot was nothing special. Otherwise, I'd give it a grade B+.

This book was pretty good. But too much russian maifa not enough about the terroitst that were stealing the nukes.