Officially, the Russian diplomat who murdered Kate Gannon was untouchable....unofficially, her husband, Jack Gannon, intended to kill him....
Never Make a Dangerous Man Angry!
From guerilla hideouts in Nicaragua to actual military installations so secret that the Russians don't know they exist - and neither do the American people - J. C. Pollock again uses his insider's knowledge of covert actions and special warfare to create a thriller filled with excitement, outrage, and breathtaking adventure.
J.C. Pollock is a mysterious figure who wrote several strong selling adventure/action novels over an eleven-year period (1982-1993) and then abruptly dropped off the radar. He is a topic of speculation on the Internet and many suspect that he was a CIA agent attached to the SOG during the Vietnam War, but this has had not been confirmed or denied. It appears that his life is like the novels he wrote.
I read this book over 20 years ago and added it to my Must-Read-Again List. I think this was the 1st book by J.C. Pollock I read, and I wasn't disappointed.
Set near the end of the Cold War, a brutal Russian agent named Malik rapes and kills the wife of a former Delta Force soldier. Malik, a KGB agent who has gone rogue, takes possession of a nuclear device and threatens to escalate things between the Soviet Union and the U.S.
Gannon, the Delta Force soldier and husband of the woman murdered by Malik, goes on the hunt for his wife's murderer. But Malik proves highly resourceful, and with many contacts supporting his cause. With the help of friends, Gannon trails Malik to his hideout in the Central American jungle where his secret training base for terrorists exists. Both Gannon and Malik must avoid the American authorities as well as Soviet agents looking for them both.
The story reaches a climax when Gannon closes in on Malik, and one is very surprised when you learn how the enemy of my enemy can also prove to be an ally.
This book stood out in my mind all these years. I don't know why I got rid of my copy (probably because I had no room for so many of my books. I have room now, and plan to buy and read this book again. Pollock writes in good detail about the use of weapons, tactics, and how friends in the business can prove helpful. It's entertaining and a page-turner (my kind of story). I highly recommend it and look forward to reading it again.
The year is 1989. The Cold War is winding down diplomatically but there is still a faction in the KGB that is not willing to let it go. A young woman is brutally murdered in New York City and thrown from a car displaying Soviet diplomatic plates. A NYPD dectective is charged with notifying the woman's next of kin.
He learns that victim is married to a John Gannon and finds a telephone number identified as Jack's number at "The Ranch". We learn shortly thereafter that the ranch is Delta Force headquarters at Ft. Bragg and Jack is a recently retired army colonel and Delta Force veteran working as a civilian adviser.
When he arrives in New York he learns that the police feel they can do nothing about apprehending the perp as he most certainly enjoys diplomatic immunity. Jack decides that if his country's judicial system can't prosecute the perp then he will take the responsibility of prosecution upon himself. And the beat goes on. Good story.
Pollock's created a damn good action/revenge/thriller here. It's slow-going at times, and often he dedicates several pages to describing unimportant things (like the entire history of a new location, or three or four pages describing a surveillance satellite that only plays a small role in the overall story). It isn't in any hurry to get to the action, having more chapters of the characters going through Manhattan or the jungles of Nicaragua than anything else, but fear not, action fans: the two hundred or so pages of build-up finally pays off in the last hundred pages with the kind of explosive battles you'd find in Heroes Shed No Tears, or some other Vietnam-style action film that you can think of. It also helps that the man our hero is after has stolen a portable nuclear weapon with the intent to use it, making this story as much a race against time as it is a revenge thriller.
For those with short attention spans, I wouldn't recommend this, mainly due to all the descriptions of military equipment, installations, tactics, and other things that Pollock loves to throw in. While useful (most of the time) in understanding what goes on later, it can still slow the book to a crawl.
The revenge aspect is handled pretty well. I won't spoil it, but I will say that Jack Gannon's vengeful journey to get the ex-KGB agent who killed his wife doesn't play out in the typical 'pile up all the bodies and blow up everything so that I can kill one man and go on living with empty satisfaction' that you see in most Hollywood films. Gannon's got morals, and his wife hated violence, but... well, you'll see how it plays out yourself. Did I just imply that the ending is unsatisfying because *GASP* morals? Not at all. It's actually a very satisfying read; violent when it needs to be, emotional when it wants to be, and thrilling all the way through (well, except for the aforementioned explanation chapters...).
I hated what happened to his wife it made me so mad at the randomness of it all. I was so hopeful that she would survive- at least she got some good shots in. Still. The book was good and worth reading for the payback!