Stony Man IV

The Stony Man crew is sent to three locations to take out terrorists who made their presence known by attacking embassies in England, France, and Washington DC. Able Team’s mission in DC was well done, the first time I can remember Fieldhouse writing Able Team. Bolan and Phoenix Force takes on the Europe missions. More solid action to finish those up and it is time for the final showdown at the terrorists training base. Not all members will make it that far, the team takes some bad hits in this story. The final battles at the island base were written very well, wrapping up a tough mission. There are many villains sprinkled throughout this book, the team has to work their way through a lot of bad guys to find out who and where the main villains are located, and the language barriers are a challenge the warriors must deal with everywhere they go. This book has the unique voice of Fieldhouse, the main PF writer, so this was a read that reminded me of all the great books I enjoyed in the old series, and I was pleased how well the Able Team guys and Bolan were portrayed here too.

Arab terrorists launch indiscriminate deadly attacks on unsuspecting civilians in the US, France and the UK simultaneously with massive body counts. Well this plot has absolutely been flogged to death in these combined series so it is going to take something very special here to raise this title above the morass of the rest of them. Does it deliver? Sadly I don't think so but in saying that the title is still a fair read in itself. Once again the author has added some outstanding action scenes and after all of his previous titles he has the characters down pat. The storyline is good considering the plot with a couple of reasonable characters introduced but a very predictable ongoing pace and similarly predictable final assault and finish. Couple of the guys go down big time in this title which in hindsight was probably a couple of the highlights of this one. As I have said this plot has been done to death and the author still manages to present a reasonable title Imagine what he could do with a fresh/novel idea for a plot. Up to you I wouldn't recommend this to you over other titles in the series.

Terrorists execute simultaneous attacks on embassies in the US, Britain and France. The Stony Man commandoes arrive to try and catch those responsible while preventing further attacks. Average fare. The teams split up and follow up leads in America, Britain and France, and rather predictably take out the terrorist nests before predictably heading to the terrorist base where, predictably, they take on the head terrorist. Nothing really outstanding. One interesting note was that "Stony Man IV" seemed to at least pay attention to the fact that the commandoes aren't the only authority figure out there. They had to interact with FBI, local and foreign police, and other foreign governments. This gave it a more realistic feel. The team didn't just show up in other countries and run their own investigation. This was a highlight. Otherwise, this book was nothing really outstanding. Certainly a good read, but certainly not an outstanding one.

Good action filled adventure. I like Mack Bolan out on terrorist hunts with Phoenix Force and hope that he gets to accompany Able Team in some of the latter books. My only quibble with the story is that this is the 3rd "terrorist army" plot in 4 books. They kind of run together if you're in the process of reading the whole series in order. That ain't the author's fault, it's my timing.

Another fast-paced adventure by Fieldhouse. Probably his best Stony Man book.

This is probably one the most realistic books I've read in all of the Stony Man series, and all of the other series, too. It's still action-packed, though.