Hammerheads

Independent #2

by Dale Brown

The U.S. government has created an all-new drug-defense agency - Hammerheads - commanded by Coast Guard Admiral Ian Hardcastle... and armed with the ultimate war machines, unique hybrids of helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft. The war against drugs will never be the same.

Genres: Fiction, Military Fiction, Thriller, Action, War, Adventure, Aviation

560 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 16, 1990

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

[Paul Weiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

A timely, topical techno-thriller for a dysfunctional government!

The inside front flap provides a concise and accurate description of HAMMERHEAD’s story-line:

“The South American drug cartel maintains the influx of dangerous narcotics into the US at an all-time high; cooperation among US government agencies responsible for drug interdiction is at an all-time low. The situation calls for a radical solution.”

Rear Admiral Ian Hardcastle has an idea for a solution to that problem – a hammer that hits the nail on the head, as it were! (Did you see what I did there?)

HAMMERHEADS will appeal only to those readers who get off on high speed, militaristic, aviation based techno-thrillers that wow you with weaponry, machismo and self-assured feminism, battles, technology and gizmos, and plenty of acronyms. If that’s not your reading cup of tea, then set HAMMERHEADS aside and look elsewhere for your next fix (These puns just seem to write themselves!). On the other hand, if that kind of story gets your mojo going, then pour yourself a stiff one, turn on the reading lamp, sit down and get ready for a serious piece of credible, exciting, fast-paced enjoyment. At the end of the story, your only question will be why the government isn’t signing Dale Brown up to a consulting contract and asking for his advice.

Paul Weiss

[Henri Moreaux · Rating 4 out of 5]

At 691 pages this isn't a short book, however despite being essentially 700 pages it really doesn't feel that long.

The book covers basically a 3 year period of a new American Government organisation called the 'Border Security Force'(BCF) whose job (amongst other things) is drug interdiction, this is primarly the aspect the story revolves around. On one side you have the 'good' guys wanting to stop the drugs coming in, and the other the 'bad' (or in some cases evil would be a better description) guys wanting to smuggle the drugs into the US/Caribbean.

It's a pretty unique story with a lot of focus on the struggles between the two parties as they attempt to do the actual smuggling. The main aircraft used by the BCF is the V-22 Osprey featured on the book cover, the name 'Hammerheads' refers to the nickname of the BCF.

There are some pretty intense Customs raids & numerous flying sequences which are both authentic and gripping.

NB: Whilst this book does have Patrick McLanahan in it and falls between Flight of the Old Dog & Night of the Hawk chronologically it is not part of the Patrick McLanahan series.

[Bethany Wilson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ll start by saying this isn’t my usual genre of story, however, I am a fan of the V-22 Osprey and was excited to find a novel that featured it.

The plot is … okay. It could’ve been better, but my god does this man know how to talk a story to death. Every time I started to get into the action, we’d be interrupted by a page or more of exposition about the most mundane topics.

Or we’d be introduced to a new character by their former title, their new title, the title they wish they had, how they know the other characters in the room, then their first and last name. Seriously, in one scene with the president, there are around 6 characters that are thrown at us, each being given a full write up of their accomplishments—all while an attack is happening!

Also, what’s with the father/son drama? First, it’s mentioned several times that the father is SO busy with work he has to literally be ordered not to show up so he can take a day or two off … but then he nearly falls apart—not because his son was almost killed do to his recklessness, but because “He hasn’t talked to me in three weeks.” …didn’t seem like the dad was making time for him in the first place, but okay… if it was an attempt to make me sympathetic towards the MC, it didn’t.

It only had me scratching my head and asking if this was relevant to the plot because it never really seemed to be.

Then there’s the descriptions of certain weapons, aircraft, and equipment that pulled you right out of the story and placed you inside a product manual. Just the way it read seemed very sterile and not at all like the tone of the author. Like he typed it straight out of a instructional guide.

Several errors in the dialogue that would throw me off, mainly misplaced or just flat out missing “quotations”marks which would leave me to stumble as the characters appeared to be dictating their own actions out loud.

There is one scene in particular (page 236–near the bottom half) where the same exact paragraph is repeated twice, almost like the author forgot to delete one of his drafts.

Lots of repetition. In one scene, we’re in the cockpit, watching the firefight first hand—then the next page we sit through a presidential speech that’s 3 pages long summarizing the entire attack … that we just witnessed. (Also, no president in history has ever, or will ever admit on national television that he doesn’t think it’s possible to protect our borders from outside attacks).

A lot of action scenes have this ‘summarization’ attached and following. It got old really fast and I had to skim through quite a bit.

The scenes with the Osprey were what kept me going, honestly. The plot had me for a little bit, but the constant stopping of a full blow assault to explain why the baddie chose a Argentinian-made weapon out on the market after the Falklands War—which come to think of it is also the same war where the world discovered the awesome power of the Exocet missile, which basically allowed him to acquire a Kingfisher for quite the bargain when he went out on a little shopping excursion sometime ago… and—oh yeah, we’re in the middle of exciting air raid aren’t we? Let’s get back to that…

Mr. Brown definitely seems to be passionate about his weapons and aircraft, but this was just a bit too much for me. It read somewhere in the middle of a non-fiction work on various fighter planes, and a fiction novel. I probably won’t be reading anymore books from this author.

(The Osprey is still really cool though!)

[Hilmi Isa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dari pesawat pengebom di dalam novel The Flight of the Old Dog,ke stesen angkasa lepas di dalam Silver Tower,kemudian ke pesawat pejuang canggih di dalam Day of the Cheetah. Kini,di dalam Hammerheads,Dale Brown membawa pembaca merasai pengalaman bertempur di dalam AV-22 Osprey dan menyelusuri perjuangan para watak antagonis dalam menghadapi ancaman kartel dadah di Colombia yang disokong oleh sekumpulan tentera udara Cuba.

Pada awalnya,saya menyangkakan bahawa Hammerheads merupakan sebuah novel yang mempunyai 'universe'nya yang tersendiri seperti Silver Tower. Namun demikian,jangkaan saya ternyata meleset. Novel keempat Brown ini berkongsi dunia penceritaan yang sama seperti TFotOD dan DotC. Hammerheads turut menampilkan watak-watak utama di dalam dua novel tersebut iaitu Brad Elliot,Patrick McLanahan dan Roland 'J.C.' Powell. Mereka bukan sahaja melakukan 'cameo' semata-mata,malahan,turut memainkan peranan utama di dalam Hammerheads. 'Timeline' atau garis waktu novel ini juga mengambil tempat setahun selepas peristiwa di dalam TFotOD.

Hasil pengalaman membaca tiga buah novel Brown yang sebelumnya,saya sudah masak dengan gaya penulisan dan penceritaan beliau. Ini adalah sesuatu yang saya tidak punyai sebarang masalah seperti yang saya nyatakan di dalam ulasan saya sebelum ini. Cuma,saya agak prihatin dengan ketepatan beberapa fakta yang salah yang ditampilkan di dalam novel ini dan novel-novel sebelumnya. Sebagai contoh,pesawat halimunan atau 'stealth' F-117 dinyatakan Brown sebagai memiliki meriam kecil 20mm. Sedangkan,berdasarkan fakta sebenar,pesawat tersebut tidak memiliki persenjataan yang sedemikian rupa. Ini adalah sesuatu yang saya fikir agak pelik. Brown merupakan seorang bekas anggota tentera udara Amerika Syarikat. Jika diambilkira sekali dengan maklumat yang beliau terima semasa mengumpulkan 'material' atau bahan kajian untuk menulis novel ini,kesilapan ini adalah sesuatu yang tidak sepatutnya berlaku.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first of the Dale Brown books that I ever read, and being an aviation enthusiast myself (Helicopters) I found it fascinating and a very good read. What struck me above everything else was his obvious in depth knowledge of the V22 Osprey. Yet if you look at the date of first publication it was written quite a while before the V22 came into public knowledge. I had spent a career in the Police service and appreciated very much how difficult and dangerous the fight against drugs had become.
After Hammerheads, I was hooked for a long time on Dale Browns other books. They all had the ability to describe events in the world almost before they happened. Look at "Storming Heaven" which described the intention to Hi jack airliners at crash them into Cities. Written long before 9/11. Other books described conflicts in Asia, Korea and other locations again well before they hit the headlines.
Sadly as far as I was concerned Dale lost it! His later books needed to be re classified away from Military Fiction towards Sci Fi. By then he was co writing with another author and I never bought any of his books after they became sci fi based.

[Ivan Benedict · Rating 3 out of 5]

This fiction book deals with the drugs who come into the United States by plane and boat. The authorities try to figure out ways of getting the drugs before they come into the states. Many come into South Florida, where they are picked up in the Everglades. There is intention to get more interference with the drug drops. It is not easy, and it often fails even with extra planes and extra people involved with the drug cartels. Much of the book includes the people who are bringing in the drugs, and those who try to find them out and get them before they are found to live into the country. It is a nail, biting out of getting all of it done as it should be.

[Chuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an oldie but a goodie! Published way back in 1990, the technology is old now, but was cutting edge at the time.

Hammerheads is the nickname for the new agency designed to use modern aircraft (at the time) and ships and expanded radar platforms to take the drug war to the cartels before it reached the U.S. shores.

I read a lot of Dale Brown back in the day but somehow missed this one. As expected, it is a high-speed adrenaline rush! Authentic and gripping, it was a very good read and did my heart good!

[Michael Toleno · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this so long ago—at least 30 years—that I don’t have enough memory of the book or my reaction to it to write more than a cursory review. Brown describes an intensified war on drugs using special military and Coast Guard forces and equipment.

Unlike several other techno-thriller authors of the era, some of whom seem indistinguishable, I probably will plan to read more of Dale Brown’s novels in the future—probably after I read at least a hundred other books on my list.

As with all of my pre-2000 books, the “Date finished” may be a few years off.

[Mark Hartman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story that I enjoyed as I love aircraft and this has the Osprey. Enjoyable and separate from his first books characters. Book is about attempting to stop drug trafficking. Dale Brown does well on action in his books.

[Fred Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dale Brown proposes a Border Security Force controlled by his characters to control border security and the stem the flow of illegal drugs. This is something that Biden would never consider. He does not care about security of our borders.

[Doris Raines · Rating 5 out of 5]

I VOTE FOR THIS BOOK.

[Heitham Hammad · Rating 5 out of 5]

" exceptional great book to read about events and things that we face and today's time"

[Saraj Goldberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A difficult read with a lot of technical jargon. But, a good story with many surprises and satisfying conclusion.

[Miles Chicken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't take on a Shorts 330 aircraft toting a gatling gun is all I can say about this book.

[Blair Tweten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much detail and descriptions to the point where it can be a slog to get through but an adequate read.

[Marty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun story out of the series but more good info and tech use...creation.

[Whit]

Intense reading where you almost feel like you are on board one of the AV-22 Sea Lions! A good read!

[Dena Hays · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent-technical
09/15/1991

[Mark Winter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, and interesting in that it feels modern/contemporary but it precedes cell phones, gps, email, text, etc. it was a little difficult to reconcile but nevertheless well done.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good action; very technically detailed. Personally I skip a lot of that in these books and Clancy’s.

[Ross-Barry Barcock. · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great read. Looking forward to reading more of Dale Brown's books.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of Dale Brown's books where Patrick MacLanahan is not the protagonist. In this book, the author envisioned a new approach to fight the drug trade. Instead of a law enforcement model with overlapping civilian agencies, Brown's characters go after the cartels with military and paramilitary forces. When I say law enforcement model, I mean, police and prosecutors follow constitutional criminal procedures with arrest, trial with rules of evidence, and incarceration or deportation. Compare that to dropping bombs or firing a missile from a drone without the benefit of trial and criminal procedure.

I read this when I was in middle school in the EARLY 1990s. This was well before 9/11, GWOT, and the new Department of Homeland Security. I don't know if Brown was prophetic in that way and reading it again in the 2010s might make this book seem either dated or "we're doing this right now but it's classified."

Readers might draw some parallels with Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger where the US is using its military and intelligence apparatus to fight the cartels instead of a traditional law enforcement model. Just a thought.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book straight after finishing Flight of the Old Dog and of course I was let down a bit, little did I know in those days that not all books by the same author would have all the same characters in it, how dare they write other stuff! Anyway, this one wasn't as exciting, the technical content was a bit overwhelming at times. There is no doubt that the Osprey is one of the maddest planes ever created, until this book I'd never heard of it, so one good thing about the book was it inspired me to go read up on the plane. Not as well written as his other work but still an interesting read.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book, and I'm a big fan of Dale Brown. That being said, I encountered the following scenarios while reading "Hammerheads:"

-Lots of [too many?:] characters
-Not lots of character development
-Tons of great [over-my-head:] technical data
-Awesome combat drama
-Many cool explosions

I'm reading these books out of order, so some of my complaints are likely invalid. This novel, though, just lacked some of the smooth flow of others later in the series and had far too little McLanahan.

[Atetuna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read most of Dale Brown's books, and this is the worst. Horrific strategy, grammar, and spelling. The transition Dreamland, along with Elliot and McLanahan, make later in the saga is incredible, almost unbelievable. Unless you're dedicated to reading the entire Dreamland saga, go ahead and skip this book. I've giving it an extra star because Dale Brown acknowledges that alcohol may be at least as dangerous as marijuana, and the benefits of treatment and reduced sentences for users.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book about sharks but is a novel about the US military and the drug cartels. A Coast Guard cutter is ambushed as it is inspecting a ship in the Gulf of Mexico and an Air Force jet is shot down by a plane smuggling drugs. Admiral Ian Hardcastle is chosen to lead the efforts against the drug cartels. The Hammerheads are an elite anti-drug smuggling unit based on the group founded during Prohibition.

[Roy Szweda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A re-read from way back and this time I was not so impressed. As others have noted it is not up there with the Old Dog and others that I enjoyed so much. Love reading about the V22 etc but the rest was a bit of a stretch. Maybe a bit too long but some interesting themes and even tho it is from the nineties we still do not have these wonderful aircraft doing this job... maybe too expensive. Sadly the drugs problem, among others, has not got any better it would seem...

[Nina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not really my cup of tea but I was on holiday and finished all my books and it was the only book in english that the hotel had available.Very much a boys book in my mind - lots of detail about engines and planes and guns.  Got me thinking though, that given the book is 20 years old, what exactly the US is doing about protecting its borders against drug trafficking.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good book. Exciting stuff in it. Classic Dale Brown thriller about USA's war on drugs. I read/listened the abridged version and the length was just about right. The book contains a lot of characters and (abridged) it doesn't develop any of them very well--a trade off from lengthy discussion. And, I suppose it's a boy book: lots of fun explosions and much technical data.

[Mark Ploeger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Classic Dale Brown thriller. Believable enough to feel real and gritty but fanciful enough to grab hold of your imagination. Very hard to put down. Would recommend to any fans of action thriller books, and doubly so to existing Dale Brown fans.