Tiger's Claw

Brad McLanahan #1

by Dale Brown, William Dufris (Reading)

When China launches the first successful test of its anti-ship ballistic missile, the future looks bleak for America. Fearing the U.S. will lose its naval supremacy in the Pacific, President Kenneth Phoenix finds himself in a compromised position. New technology requires money, but the country is recovering from a massive recession. Without the funds to compete with China's advancing technology, are the country's days of naval preeminence in the Pacific running out?

Retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Patrick McLanahan refuses to accept this fate. McLanahan reasons that the United States can afford to refurbish old but potent long-range B-1B Lancer bombers to promote the AirSea Battle strategy that will push back against Chinese aggression. Soon America stands ready to deploy an AirSea Battle task force in the South China Sea.

The People's Liberation Army aggressively deploys advanced fighters, land-based antimissiles, three aircraft carriers, and exotic, top secret directed energy weapons against their neighbors. But Patrick McLanahan is finally given the green light to lead his force westward to challenge the Chinese threat head-on.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Military Fiction, War, Audiobook, Suspense, Mystery Thriller

Audio CD

First published September 4, 2012

About the author

Former U.S. Air Force captain Dale Brown is the superstar author of 25 consecutive New York Times best-selling military-action-aviation adventure novels: FLIGHT OF THE OLD DOG (1987), SILVER TOWER (1988), DAY OF THE CHEETAH (1989), HAMMERHEADS (1990), SKY MASTERS (1991), NIGHT OF THE HAWK (1992), CHAINS OF COMMAND (1993), STORMING HEAVEN (1994), SHADOWS OF STEEL (1996) and FATAL TERRAIN (1997), THE TIN MAN (1998), BATTLE BORN (1999), and WARRIOR CLASS (2001). His Fourteenth Novel AIRBATTLE FORCE will be published in late Spring 2003... Dale's novels are published in 11 languages and distributed to over 70 countries. Worldwide sales of his novels, audiobooks and computer games exceed 10 million copies.

Dale was born in Buffalo, New York on November 2, 1956. He graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Western European History and received an Air Force commission in 1978. He was a navigator-bombardier in the B-52G Stratofortress heavy bomber and the FB-111A supersonic medium bomber, and is the recipient of several military decorations and awards including the Air Force Commendation Medal with oak leaf cluster, the Combat Crew Award, and the Marksmanship ribbon.
Dale was also one of the nation's first Air Force ROTC cadets to qualify for and complete the grueling three-week U.S. Army Airborne Infantry paratrooper training course.

Dale is a director and volunteer pilot for AirLifeLine, a non-profit national charitable medical transportation organization who fly needy persons free of charge to receive treatment. He also supports a number of organizations to support and promote law enforcement and reading.

Dale Brown is a member of The Writers Guild and a Life Member of the Air Force Association and U.S. Naval Institute. He is a multi-engine and instrument-rated private pilot and can often be found in the skies all across the United States, piloting his own plane. On the ground, Dale enjoys tennis, skiing, scuba diving, and hockey. Dale, his wife Diane, and son Hunter live near the shores of Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

Reviews

[Skip · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pretty weak effort when all was said and done. Started out well, with China flexing its muscles in the South China Sea, which it claims as sovereign territory from many centuries ago. The military leadership asserts itself, using its newfound weapons on U.S. and local foes. Meanwhile, the U.S. has little military strength left, and has to rely on Patrick McLanahan's refurbished B1 bombers through private contracting. Too much technobabble, and too long. I hope #19 is better.

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dale Brown used to be one of my go-to authors when I wanted to just read some mindless action/mil-thriller. But it seems that he has gone the way of Patrick Robinson. In the novel, the Chinese are stirring up trouble, throwing their weight around, and the Americans don't like it. Brown introduces some interesting ideas at the very beginning about new technologies, fancy pants EMP weapons and so on. (which the novel is named after, I think) He then proceeds to ignore these for pretty much the rest of the novel.

My next problem with this book, is his hero Patrick McLanahan. Apparently he is the CEO of a company, but generously takes virtually no salary, which ensures he lives barely above the poverty line, ensuring that he just can't scrape together the funds to send his son to a real college. Blah blah blah fake drama.

Onto my next reason for hatred - the villains. Dale Brown - and his cohort Patrick Robinson - seem to relish the idea that anyone who isn't American are unreasoning, sadistic madmen who only desire to (to quote a movie) watch the world burn. All of the Chinese politicians and military personnel in this book (bar 1 notable exception) are portrayed as gung-ho, insane Yellow Terror enthusiasts, who delight in dropping nukes with one hand, and playing innocent with the other.

Surely, for chrissakes, could we please drop this 1960s mentality in our military thrillers already? It's like everyone gets Pinky and the Brain syndrome, and believes they can take over the world. Dale Brown portrays the American politicians (party unknown) as simpering idiots, who are too busy fighting over budgetary requirements (as though finding money for military spending has ever been a problem in the real world), while the Chinese devils are running rampant. I read a Patrick Robinson novel a few months ago which was far more overt in its Dem-bashing and China-slandering, but this was coming close to it.

My final beef with the book was how it ended. It just...ended... for no particular reason. It seemed like he wrote "and then we won because Patrick McLanahan."

I won't be reading any more Dale Brown books at this stage. He used to write such interesting books. This was not, this was a terrible book.

[Bill Wilson · Rating 1 out of 5]

My first Dale Brown book - and certainly my last. Tom Clancy without any of the redeeming qualities. I enjoy the geopolitical plot and find the military hardware descriptions interesting (to a point, and like Clancy, he often doesn't know when to stop; sometimes I felt like I was reading an inventory sheet for an Offut AFB base storeroom). But subtlety and nuance are apparently not writing tools Mr. Brown covered in his writing class after the Air Force. Most of the good guys were cartoonish one dimensional characters spouting neocon bromides or, if they are bad guys, acting as neocons would expect them to behave, and both were a big turn off. I am generally someone who believes in making sure our country is properly protected, but also understand the world is pretty complicated, and Mr. Brown's frequent derision for divergent viewpoints on economic matters and their impact on national defense got tiresome quickly. And here's more bad news: the ending seemed tailor-made to tee up "Tiger's Claw II - The Chinese have more nutjobs too." Read "The Bear and the Dragon" instead.

[Clay Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot about the South China Sea.

[Joanna Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

As always, when I give a less than stellar review, I like to explain. I’m not here to poop on anyone’s hard work.
To be fair, this isn’t my usual kind of book. I thought maybe it would grip me anyways, because lots of books seem to be able to transcend their genre and appeal to many readers. This was not that book. I didn’t finish, which is rare for me, but, I just couldn’t get past all the long, technical descriptions. I was so bored and I couldn’t spend anymore of my precious free time on it. If you’re a fan of the military genre, you might love this book. I can only say that to this generalist reader, it wasn’t captivating.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun read. Lots of military and aviation jargon. A good plot line. You'll easily ID the good guys and bad guys. I will need to read the authors back catalog as they refer to the "American Holocaust" many times. This seems to be a passing of the torch novel from one main character to another.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've read most of Dale Brown's books and enjoyed most of them. Some others had shortcomings, too. But after this one I won't bother anymore.

I don't mind that he killed off yet another long term protagonist. He had it coming and was simply overdue. But doing so in an afterthought like fashion?

Sorry, but *that* chap deserved a thad better.

BUT: My main struggle with this book is the horrible plot. I absolutely despise it if a writer fills his book with plots which aren't explored to the fullest extend. Plots which play no greater meaning towards the end. So what about that survey ship in the beginning? Wasted paper. Didn't play *any* role at all for the course of the book. What about the Coast Guard vessel and the choppers sent after the P-8? What about the Chinese high tech weapons? The Chinese carrier that carried the name of this book? What about the Russian participation in the Chinese plot? The sinking of the carrier Vladimir Putin? All of that was just wasted paper, because in the grand scheme of things all of it didn't contribute to the story and was simply left dangling at the end.

So what do we get instead? A mightily pumped China starts a war and our heroes make sure it blows over in 20 pages. That are the 20 pages that are barely worth the time reading. That's where they turned avgas into noise and dropped bombs on some bad guys. But all the fluff before and after it?

There is a term for that: WASTED TIME.

The Epilogue of this book also does nothing. It is the sorry excuse to wrap up a terrible plot. So the Russians just suck it up and the Chinese crawl back into their hole? Didn't suspense my disbelieve.

The *only* purpose that this book servers is that it allowed Dale Brown to quickly build up a new main protagonist (Bradley McLanahan) for his next couple of books. And even that quick elevation from Airforce Academy Dropout to savior-of-the-world is not the least bit credible at all.

Sorry Dale, but I feel cheated. Like I bought a full book and only got half a book in return. It's like the writer realized: "Whoops! I've written my alloted quota of words. Time to wrap it up in the next five pages!"

Dale, have my sincere BRAVO SIERRA FOXTROT UNIFORM for this one. It sucks from start to finish.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dale Brown, the author of the stellar novels Flight of the Old Dog and Hammerheads, has really started to fade. Tiger's Claw is a perfect example of a series gone on for too long, the characters are tired and the plot series is just stretching too far.

Patrick McLanahan has been through more than many characters, from nuclear holocausts to nail biting dogfights with heavy bombers. Now, with China becoming a major threat to the weakened United States he seeks to start a private air force to stave off the Chinese.

It started interesting with a tense face off between super powers, but quickly crashes. Too much is brought up in the first hundred pages that never is resolved, whatever happens to the Tiger's Claw anyway? And after a little while, with the world teetering on World War III, who really cares what Bradley McLanahan is learning in flight school? While the flying and combat scenes are still tense and cinematic they are not enough to salvage this book.

I grabbed this book hoping for a tense could-be thriller by one of my favorite authors, but was a little disappointed by the last page. Read it only if you're a die-hard McLanahan fan.

[William Bentrim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tiger’s Claw by Dale Brown

Dale Brown plucks his plots out of newspaper headlines. This thriller postulates China as our new deadly foe. Obviously that is not much of a fictional stretch.

One of the subtleties of Brown’s books is the need to read between the lines. The book points out that with the intertwined nature of the global economy it would be difficult for any conflict to escalate to war.

Even noting that, Brown clearly details how minor events can snowball into making conflict nearly inevitable. I haven’t read any Dale Brown lately and I found this book a bit more formulistic than I recall. It could have been one I read several years ago with the names of the players being changed.

I do enjoy the reoccurring characters as that provides a familiarity to the story that is quite pleasant. The nature of the plot does not provide a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings but more of a sense of trepidation. The specific details sometimes get overwhelming but overall and entertaining read.

I recommend the book.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

I stopped reading Dale Brown because I felt he was doing formula novels. I was curious about the ripped-from-the-headline premise so I read Tigers Claw. This book starts off strong then peters out. The high tech weapons that China uses, the hacking of utilities.. Where are the consequences? How is it that every time a power goes rogue we get a coup (or two) to resolve the problem? The president is always weak or clueless.
I can live with all that if the recurring characters and cinematic fight scenes are well done.
Well, there is zero chaacter developement for Gen Mclanahan or pres. Phoenix. The antagonists are cookie cutter ultra-nationalists.

Worse the climatic battle feels rushed. It all ends very abruptly with the death of a recurring character seemingly done because the author didnt know what else to do with him. And he died exactly the same that a previous recurring character died. Formula, derivative, repetitive, commercial junk. Bah!

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Retired Patrick McLanahan has been working with others to resurrect mothballed bombers and upgrade them with the intent of subcontracting to the government supplying planes and all personnel required to fly and support them. When the Chinese begin to rattle sabers and claim exclusive of major shipping lanes and disputed islands in the South China Sea it soon becomes apparent that the US is woefully lacking in resources to counteract the Chinese. When diplomatic efforts fail due to Chinese duplicity Patrick and his civilian company step in to fill the gap. Patrick's son makes appearance in another of Dale Brown's military adventures. Always and enjoyable read.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

The General used his XB11-73s #2 pencil to write the memo on a 23-wd_63xbc legal pad. While he was writing he made a mistake and employed a BYGT-X17-23k sythetic eraser to remove his error. Once he was finish he handed the memo to his secretary. She conscientiously transcribed the memo on her Cybervax 19-24ax_7c data entry terminal, which was fed directly into the TVM JT-721438 flux capacitor computer core.

Fudge!!! (only a different word)

This book was so focused on acronyms and model numbers that it neglected the story. Several times I wanted to shred this book, burn the paper, and shove the ashes down the author's throat.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read but all of the technical details bogged down the flow of the story. I found myself skimming over these (unimportant) details and thought it would have been more interesting to have them omitted.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this novel interesting because of the characters and the subject. Not always easy with this author who has written some clinkers, especially around latino immigration. 7 of 10 stars

[Michael Koch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is copyrighted 2012 and the technology was still capable when I read it in 2025. Both the technology and elements of the plot line feel as if they could appear in the news today. This was a well constructed plot. The book presents an interesting situation that could be current with only one or two important deviations.

This is another in the Patrick McLanahan series. Brown has recently placed McLanahan in nasty subordinate battles with superior officers, including occasionally the President of the United States. These scenes have been unlikely and unseemly in my opinion. Fortunately, only one such scene occurred in this book. In this case, his son crossed activities with a senior ranking student who had the power to terminate his education process. This short scene provided minor story impact with little plot impact.

In the current story, we see China increasing its naval strength including naval air power. China is also tightening its restrictions over use of the South China Sea by its neighbouring nations and the US. The United States has recently faced a brief war with Russia and has seen its navy reduced in size and power. Tension has increased as a US naval patrol aircraft is destroyed and recovery efforts are threatened. US efforts to over-power the Chinese navy have been constrained. Its war with Russia has reduced its fleet of Aircraft Carriers and naval air, and its financial power has been seriously constrained.

McLanahan is retired from USAF and is now Vice President and COO of Sky Masters. He proposes to upgrade several retired aircraft at Sky Masters cost and rent them to the US. This, of course, is controversial within the United States and is seen by China as merely words as the renovated aircraft will be based in the Pacific Ocean. China views this as an opportunity to further reduce the power of the US and China’s neighbours.

Of course, a significant naval air battle occurs. As with Brown’s earlier McLanahan novels, the battle is exciting, and casualties are incurred on both sides. He ends with a couple of truly surprising elements. A good read and an exciting story of serious interest for those looking for air battles. Four stars.

[Ken Heard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first venture into this type of genre fiction in a long, long time. I had read another Dale Brown book maybe 10 years ago and have steered clear of military thrillers - not because I'm adverse to them, but because there's so many other things to read.

That said, Tiger's Claw was a really entertaining book and Brown can tell a good story if you can get around the techno-jargon and excessive details on type of aircraft and weaponry. The novel begins in a real-like situation with China flexing its muscles and wanting to control the entire China sea. It does bog down a bit with discussions with weak president Kenneth Phoenix and stereotypical tough vice president Ann (forgot her last name). However, the action scenes, the aerial dogfight and ocean attacks, are well-written.

I thought this was the first of a series, and I guess I was correct in that it introduces Brad McLanahan. Maybe reading earlier work with his father, Patrick McLanahan, would have provided better overall context, but it seemed to work okay. I'll consider reading more of this series down the reading line.

[Laz · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a somewhat enjoyable book, but definitely not one of the best of the genre. The basic idea is pretty weak. Obviously there was a precursor to this story where Russia attacked the US with nuclear missiles and destroyed the northeast - a redneck wet dream - but the US apparently remained the largest economy of the world with the biggest military. Sure. Then it beats back a challenge from China which was taken over by a mad general. Sure. It has a lot of idle pages spent on unnecessary and dubious technical info. The father figure is laughable, a poor COO of a corporation - riiight. In the end he is lifted to sainthood - riiight. There is a horny female pilot shagging the protagonist for no obvious reason - riiight. In many ways this book is a teenage Texas boy's daydream. But, there is some decent action in the book that's enjoyable, so I was able to finish the book.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been getting some fiction into my reading plan thus tried this earlier book in this series. While certainly interesting and worth a read, I found The Kremlin Strike a bit more fun and current. Tiger's Claw connects one to the tension between China and Taiwan... with the U.S. right in the middle. The author connects us to the new doctrine of the time in which the book was written as well as some details pulled out of those current events. While I question Patrick McLanahan's actions at the end of the book, overall it is well written and makes on think hard about the possibilities of a shooting war in this part of the world.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book I would have chosen, but this is the audio book my husband chose for our recent road trip. There's a lot of military and weaponry description that went over my head, but Brown does a good job of balancing those details with character development and plot. It's eerie how close these circumstances parallel the present situation with China flexing its muscle in the China Sea and the US in a weakened position - perhaps not militarily, but certainly in its standing in the world. I know one person who will be reading more of Brown's novels.

[Marcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. It has a lot of details about planes and aerial fighting, but the emphasis is still on the characters and the story. This book gives the background for why Brad McLanahan dropped out of the US Air Force Academy and why his attitude changed concerning his training for piloting different aircraft. The Chinese characters were especially interesting and distinct. The action is very credible, probably because of the motivations of the characters.

[George]

Geopolitical plot and find the military hardware descriptions interesting--China attempts to exert it's hegemony over the South China Sea....exaggerated as it was. Bradley McLanahan (Patrick's son) is featured as a large part of the story. Once again, the author fell short on the C2 relations. Detailed equipment descriptions abound. This was #18--off to #19.

[Micki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I struggled with this one a bit. Although this is a completely believable plotline - because I usually fall asleep listening to audiobooks - I had trouble keeping my place due to the book jumping around a bit. I also found some of the characters to be a bit "cookie-cutter", instead of completely believable. The narration was good and the ending, although sad, was very realistic.

[Rick Sutter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read with high tech military jargon, details and insights. Deals with a real senario and challenges within our own time. With the Coronavirus in full swing at my reading of this book, makes the details in the book even more intense and real!

[Steve Osten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect

If you enjoy action Dale Brown gets the job done. The plot was up to date. The character's were all placed together perfectly. I look forward to reading more from this author.

[Ada Iaboni · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series is a little more sci/fi than normal war/ threats bad guys. Some robotics and other futuristic weapons take center stage in them and are at times, very detailed.
At the same time, they are fast paced and fun to read.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a very good book. I enjoyed it very much.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun listen. Bradley (son) of Patrick plays a key role. Some silliness, but keep one’s attention.

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I made a mistake and thought I was getting a Dan Brown and ended up with a Dale Brown. Not my kind of book!

[Elizabeth Orsini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good but not great

Left us hanging regarding son and gal pilot ! Seemed though tried to finish up the story line abruptly! Could have used another chapter or two.

[Ronnie Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

He's gone

This was another sad ending,the death of another crew dog,Patrick died doing what he loved,flying,fighting,teaching ,this is a page turner