The Shadows of Power

This book is a thriller! it will send your adreniline racing. With a nearly heartstopping ending!

Ed Stovic, a Navy pilot on patrol in the Med is confronted with a situation when two Algerian MiG-25s try to bounce an Hawkeye Intel plane. A missile is accidently fired and the Americans respond in kind downing one MiG and sending the other running for Momma.Now the brother of the dead Algerian pilot wants revenge and he goes gunning for Stovic. It turns out Stovic gets a spot on the elite Blue Anegls flight team and the ticked off Algerian (with a little help from his friends) decides the best way to avenge his brother is to shoot down the entire Blue Angel team during the prestigous Paris Air Show.Kent Rathman (Rat) is a one time SEAL, now a quasi private/government agent is assigned to keep Stovic in one piece and get the Algerians.The story is analogous to an old west gunfight at noon. The flying scenes and action segments are obviously where Huston is most comfortable. There is an entire subplot taking place between the National Security Advisor and the SECDEF. Personally, I would have fired the NSA. While there is a need for executive level decisions for the plot, this entire sub-plot detracted rather than added to the story.A good read from an up and coming writer.

Huston has rebounded a bit in quality with this new novel. Like Flash Point, he clearly knows what he is talking about when he describes air combat and Naval Aviation. This knowledge makes the book authentic and exciting.His description of life in the Blue Angels is very interesting and shows that he did a lot of research with that demonstration team to make the novel as realistic and thrilling as possible.He can describe with skill how a terrorist cell operates and could attack US interests with methods that realistically cause great concern for policy makers in real life. His characters, both protagonist and antagonist, are human and plausable, and act and interact as people would in the real world.It is a great pure technothriller... but it has faults. Huston spends too much time with political infighting in the White House, which is frankly unnecessary to the plot, and bogs down the narrative a little bit. He also neglects a barely-mentioned love story that could make the characters even more believable.He should avoid political intrigue and stick to the flying and fighting of life-like characters, and could then achieve more great novels like Flash Point.

I liked this one a lot inspite of some extraneous action in the "halls of power" which is never fully explained or developed. I don't really care about some of the political power plays within the administration and they don't do much to move the story along. I am a private pilot so any book which involves flying always attracts my interest and the flying in this book is well done, as it should be because the prinicpal pilots are none other than members of the elite US Navy Demonstration Team -The Blue Angels and the author is a Top Gun graduate. Lt. Ed Stovic while involved in testing Algeria's claim to a 200 mile territorial limit shoots down an Algerian MIG-23. While the circumstances of the shoot down are less than heroic to my thinking, Stovic is treated as a hero by his nation and the Navy and Stovic himself is more than happy to bask in the glory. This changes when he learns that Ismael Nezzar, the brother of the Algerian pilot who was killed in the action is not taking the loss well and in fact has decided to kill Stovic.Ismael was studying in the United States (where else) when all of this begins and he therefore gets to watch the combat camera film of his brother's MIG being blown out of the sky every 10 minutes on CNN. He later learns of the fairly horrific way his brother died as he tried to escape from his burning plane. Initially, if one is to have sympathy between the two characters, Ismael has some things going for him. Enter Kent Rathman, the third major character in the book. Rathman a/k/a "Rat". Rathman is the consumate counter-terrorist operative whose prior history (Navy SEAL) is never fully explained, but wherever he acquired the knowledge to put together an anti-terrorist organization which is more effective than those of major governments is beside the point. If the Rat is on your case, you are in serious trouble. The Rat is assigned by the White House to protect Stovic. Just to bring it full circle they were classmates at the Naval Academy.It isn't long before Rat is earning his money in protecting Stovic. Then, soon after his return to the States Stovic is offerred a chance to fly Number 6 for The Blue Angels. The words "no thanks" never occur to him even though they do to his wife, who is less than thirlled with this assignment.Ismael sees the opportunity, not only to avenge his brother, but to make a poitical statement in organizing an attack against the flying team at one of the most prestigioius air shows in the world, The Paris Air Show. The balance of the book is a cat and mouse hunt for the Algerians whom everyone knows are waiting to bring the Angels to earth which focuses more on Rat's character who educates Stovic about how the war against terrorisim is fought. After a particularly brutal interrogation of an Algerian by Rat which Stovic witnesses and complains about, Rat advises him: " Look. What you do is important. I'm just telling you that today, most of the defense of the United States is done where you don

This book has a lot of air plane flying (Blue Angels) as did his previous books, but I liked this one better.The story revolves around Lieutenant Stovic, an American pilot who borderline justifiably shoots down an Algerian MiG-25 (Chakib Nezzar) wingman to an Algerian pilot that accidently set off a missle. This gets Stovic advanced to be a Blue Angel (one of his thoughts for shooting the MiG). Trouble is Ismael Nezzar (the brother of the MiG pilot) is a former terrorist that now decide he needs vengence on Stovic and of course the Blue Angels and America in general (even though he does blame the Algerian pilot for starting it). Much time, money and effort is expended on protection. Kent Rathman (Rat) is the main protection, a very capable multi-agency worker that tries to keep Stovic alive and stop Ismael and his fellow terrorists, of course with the help and interferance of the FBI, CIA, Navy, police, etc. Rat would have been a much better main character and I would like to see more stories with him. There was also some subplot with the National Security Advisor Sarah StJohn, which I did not see adding anything of use to the story.Over all a good book with a lot of info on the Blue Angels which I assume is true since Huston was not only a pilot but also a graduate of TOP GUN.