Shadow Down

I just finished reading Shadow Down. I bought the book because I enjoy aviation thrillers and technothrillers. By profession I'm a commercial pilot. Before that I was a Navy fighter jock who put in many hours of combat time in the cockpit of an F/A-18 during the Gulf War. I thought Shadow Down was a real good book. It came on strong, built up speed and momentum in the middle part and finished with a slam-bang conclusion in the final chapters. The book's premise is that the Russians have reverse-engineered or at least copied the American F-117A Stealth fighter and that one of these radar-evading aircraft was downed in Iran by a near-miss from a high-tech SAM and its pilot captured. One of the reasons the Russian stealth was lost, incidentally, was a counter-stealth radar system which I also thought was a nice twist and was portrayed very credibly.The Iranians have now got the plane and are trying some reverse-engineering of their own. The Russians want the aircraft back and plan to send in Spetsnaz, or their special forces commandos, to find the aircraft, rescue the pilot and either destroy or fly it back out. The Americans want to make sure the Russians don't fumble the op, and have their own strategic reasons for wanting the plane out of Iran as fast as possible. A joint operation by U.S. Delta Force and Russian Spetsnaz commandos is assembled. But the Israelis also want to get their hands on the stealth and stage a grab for it using their own specialist troops.After a lot of twists and turns, which make for some outstanding action scenes, the Russian plane is recovered. But the ending had more twists and a number of real surprises and I won't spoil it by giving it away.To sum it all up, Shadow Down's a fast-mover that should be on every action fan's reading list.

I found Shadow Down to be an interesting and entertaining action novel that kept my interest as it went along and built up to an exciting conclusion. The technical side of the book was well-researched, including all of the different aspects about the F117, and I also thought that having Russian Spetsnaz team up with American Delta Force was handled well. I'd recommend this book for anyone interested in escapist military or adventure reading.

The plot of Shadow Down turned into the six o'clock news when an F-117A was downed over Bujanovici, Yugoslavia by what was presumably a low-altitude SAM strike. By the author of Bandit.

A real page-turner of a technothriller, great plot and plenty of action. Though it didn't skimp on the techno-military facts and statistics, it didn't read like an owner's manual or a parts list like some other books I could name. On the contrary, the book was a well-crafted job of storytelling that didn't hit any false notes. I'd recommend this book to any technothriller fan hungry for fast-paced reading entertainment.

This one had it all! Fast-paced action, twists and turns galore, characters you could really get into and a riveting plot that kept me turning pages until the big conclusion. I admit I'm prejudiced, because I've been a fan of Alexander's for years and have read most of his books. I think I can honestly say that readers who follow his work will want to read this one, while readers who are new to his books will want to go out and get some of his other novels too.