THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410080186
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY BILL ROACH
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
STORMING HEAVEN
DALE BROWN
G.P. Putnam's Sons. 400 pp. $22.95.
Dale Brown, one of the premier writers in the current crop of techno-thriller types who write about Air Force pilots in action, has once again diverted from his usual setting to produce Storming Heaven, his eighth novel.
This is a sequel to Hammerheads (1990), which introduced Coast Guard Adm. Ian Hardcastle, who became the hard-hitting czar of a military-civilian anti-drug force.
Hammerheads had a rather cluttered plot that lacked the focus of Brown's debut, the superbly crafted, action-packed, suspenseful Flight of the Old Dog, and its successors. Although in the same mold as Hammerheads, Storming Heaven is a superior book.
A crazed terrorist, Henri Cazaux, has the United States under siege: He is bombing America's major airports. He begins with a small Northern California airport and then quickly takes out the San Francisco airport, killing quite a few people. And that's just the beginning of the suspense.
Enter Hardcastle, this time as the pick of a reluctant anti-military president who anoints him anti-terrorist czar. Hardcastle devises a plan to guard the airports with Patriot missiles and Air Force fighters. He is assisted by an Air Force lieutenant colonel and a gorgeous female Secret Service agent.
Brown's satiric hand is evident in his Washington characters. He paints a less than flattering picture of a president who is remarkably similar to Bill Clinton and dubs the first lady the ``Steel Magnolia'' (a lawyer, she tells the president what to do). A vitriolic female head of the FBI rounds out the bunch.
The clashes between Hardcastle and the Washington insiders and the moves and countermoves against the terrorists make for an action-loaded plot. The novel is capped by a smashing finish as the terrorists set out to bomb the Capitol and the White House. MEMO: Bill Roach is a retired naval officer in Jacksonville, Fla., who
formerly served in the Norfolk area. by CNB