Customer Reviews

24 Declassified: Collateral Damage

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I enjoyed this entry in the 24 series. Full of action and violence but also full of wonderful moments of heroism. You see, it's the heroism, not the politics, that draws us 24 fans again and again to Jack Bauer. He sacrifices for a greater good, wrestles with doing a wrong thing for the right reason, and this author delivers those moments beautifully. Don't miss Collateral Damage if you are a fan of 24. As a New Yorker, I found it especially refreshing to have the setting moved East and accurate to the city I live in.

Don't be afraid of this book if you have never seen 24. It reads very well as a stand-alone thriller. All of the characters are well explained and well defined, all of the settings are well described, and all of the organizations are well explained, too, including CTU, the CIA unit for which Jack Bauer works.

In fact, if you read this book, you may better understand the show itself--how Jack thinks, how CTU fits into the larger scheme of government, and what it is attempting to accomplish. In any event, I agree with the other reviews. Good read.

Wow..I just finished this book today and it was awesome. It's better than the other ones. The plot is very interesting. Instead of saving the world from terrorists in LA, Bauer gets sent to the Big Apple to fix all the problems that the CTU branch in New York has! It's very interesting and the book has kinda a twist in the middle. You think that it starts out as a book where the enemy is just a bunch of terrorists that don't like the US but then there is a twist and you find out that they actually want to bring down the US economy! It's also good because Almeida and Morris o Brian are the supporting characters. Almeida is great and Morris Brian provides good comic relief during tense moments in the book. Yeah. This book rocks! Marc Cerasini....don't stop writing....

I'm a huge 24 fan and have been reading the declassified books since the first one was released. The last book (Storm Force) left a bad taste in my mouth. Worst "24" book ever. I wrote a review for that book as well.

Marc Cerasini, however, does not disappoint. Collateral Damage is a great read. He continues to be the best at conveying a compelling Jack Bauer novel. He weaves plenty of action and suspense throughout a well told story. The book moves fast. It starts off with Jack and company being ambushed and the action doesn't stop until the last page. There are many of our favorite characters as well as new ones. If you are a 24 fan, you'll love the book.

Due to the Hollywood writers strike, the seventh season of "24" has been postponed till next year. Thus the "24" paperback novels, which are usually scheduled to coincide with the new season, are this year going above and beyond the call of duty to keep the franchise alive. Hardcore fans of the show are able to get their "24" fix thanks to these books. It is fortunate indeed that "Collateral Damage" is Marc Cerasini's best entry in the series to date.

The story starts off with a bang with an assassination attempt on Jack Bauer and company in the first minutes of the first hour, and the unrelenting pace never lets up. Breathtaking action and daring escapes ensue as Jack and CTU rush to forestall a plot to sow terrorist destruction throughout the eastern US. The story unfolds in various locations in New York City, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New England, offering a refreshing change of pace from the show's typical Southern California setting. The chaos is the handiwork of an Islamic extremist group headquartered in a remote village in New Jersey. Composed mainly of ex-cons recruited in American prisons, the group has bought up all the property of a small town to create a compound for training and executing their plot. The group is actually a cult guided by a Jonestown-type leader that has adopted the trappings of radical Islam to tap into the rage of societal outcasts. But the group itself is being manipulated by a shadowy puppet-master behind the scenes with an even more sinister agenda.

Like other "24" novels, "Collateral Damage" is a prequel to the show, taking place prior to 9/11. The terrorist threat is not taken as seriously as it ought to be. One of the first signs of trouble is the capture of a local jogger who has strayed onto the cult's compound despite prior warnings about trespassing; she has an exaggerated sense of her immunity as an American, and pays a terrifying price for her complacency and arrogance. This establishes a motif that runs thoughout the book. The chaos Jack and CTU struggle to contain could have been nipped in the bud if not for the arrogant interference of bungling know-it-all beaurocrats. But once unleashed, the destruction reaches truly apocalyptic proportions.

First off, I haven't been completely happy with Marc Cerasini's books and I still don't know who proofreads these 24 novels, but that said, I really enjoyed this and had a hard time putting it down. Like the 1st 24 novel, it takes place in NYC (my guess is that is Cerasini's home base) and contains a lot of familiar characters (including what I think is the 1st appearance of Chloe) and many other 24 universe members. Strange that Nina wasn't mentioned, but probably best not to try to include EVERYONE! Some of the dialog is a stretch (Morris calls Jack "Jack-O" well over a dozen times, sometimes more than once on the same page). Also, Jack has a line near the end of the book (in the middle of the action) that he says "patience is no virtue when you are running out of time." On the 24 show, Jack would have just shouted 'NOW' and you'd have gotten the point. Some of the voices aren't accurate, but it is a pretty good story that had a few surprises, even for a die hard 24 fan like me.

Overall, worth reading. Happy to say that it helps fill in the painful 2008 24 gap. Looking forward to the next book, and then the 2 hour movie this fall!

I very much liked this book in the series. I don't read a lot so I usually take about a week to finish a book, but I blasted through this one is 2 days. I couldn't put it down. The author stays true to the character and the methods that make Jack Bauer so great, are demonstrated in this book as well.

Due to circumstances beyond his control, Jack is ordered to assist in the beginning hours of operation of CTU New York. While in New York, ambushes occur, multiple moles run wild, a large number of terrorists strike, and a large number of bodies (all ages and genders) start piling up. This sets the stage for Collateral Damage a decent read for any 24 fan. One of the big controversies surrounding 24 is the use of torture by CTU. Mr. Cerasini does not hold back on either the torture used by CTU with a suspected mole or the many gruesome and disturbing torture scenes with the terrorists. Images we picture would never make it to the show as we read of children taking turns using a saw to cut off a victims head...while he is still screaming. Pitchforks are also used in different manners as well.
The action is fairly good and there are some suspenseful moments. Mr. Cerasini also keeps the book as real as the show by allowing multiple terror strikes to actually occur and not be stopped even after CTU is working to stop them. The story is pre 9/11 and the ultimate goal of the terrorists will strike a cord with many. I felt there were a few holes within the story and the climax at the end seemed a bit rushed. It should have taken longer than a 30-40 minute period of time to reach a location and set everything up before the end. Overall, this is a good book and worth your time if you are a fan.

I do enjoy reading these books. They are a little more detailed and graphic than the series was allowed to be.

Were it not for the recent writers' strike, Season 7 of "24" would be in full swing right now. We'd be more than halfway home. Perhaps some beloved characters would already be killed off at this point in the year-long story; perhaps the early-season secondary villains were about to give way to the Big Bad.

Unfortunately, though, this review is written with the lights out. Mark Cerasini, who wrote the first "24" original novel (24 Declassified: Operation Hell Gate (24 Declassified)), is back with "Collateral Damage", which tells a story too broad and action-packed for the small screen. It's the only new "24" we can get right now.

Removed from the confines of Culver City warehouses, and spared yet another shootout on a dusty freeway shoulder in San Bernardino County, "Collateral Damage" brings three CTU fixtures (Jack, Tony, and Morris O'Brian) to the fresh air of lower Manhattan to inspect the nascent New York division. It's 1999. Terrorist forces are brewing across the river, in both Newark and a rural Garden State encampment, and the World Trade Center's in danger once again.

I'd forgotten a lot about Cerasini's first novel (I've somehow missed his two subsequent stories), so some of the graphic violence in "Collateral" shocked me. There's a gruesome mob attack that lasts a couple of chapters (hours), and several large-scale explosions at truck stops and munitions plants. This being "24", there's also a torture scene -- set high up on Central Park West and culminating in a chase through the Park itself. Naturally (this is "24", after all), the torture can be expected to yield impressive results.

Cerasini spreads the action over the Northeast and gives "24" a sense of scale it couldn't achieve on the TV screen. There are fewer time cheats, too. No getting from West LA to Ontario Airport in a single commercial break. Jack Bauer is well portrayed as always, Tony gets a lot to do, and Morris provides the same comic relief that Carlo Rota gave us the last two TV seasons.

Finally, a word about politics. "24"'s always been fair about straddling the liberal/conservative divide. "Collateral Damage" continues that trend, with secondary villains both left (civil rights-minded CTU higher-ups) and right (financial speculators out to destabilize the US economy and cash in on their foreign holdings). However, the book makes just one, hopefully inadvertent, misstep. It can be read that the author's telling us: "Had Jack Bauer been there, the Twin Towers might still be standing". Even coming under the banner of a show where a nuclear bomb detonates in Valencia and within six hours everyone's forgotten, I'm not sure that this is the right storyline to be selling.