Cat and Mouse [Mass Market Paperback]

Harold Coyle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2008

Deep in the sweltering jungles of the Philipines, Nathan Dixon and the Third Regiment of the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Battalion are fighting an elusive and deadly force. Nathan and his unit face one bloody encounter after another with a small but highly trained corps of Islamic terrorists. And though the death toll keeps rising, the Rangers’ battalion commander has convinced most of his superiors that he has an all but foolproof plan for defeating the enemy. But back in Washington, Nathan’s father, Lieutenant General Scott Dixon, the deputy chief of staff for operations with the U.S. Army, realizes that if the mission continues, many more Americans will be wounded or killed—perhaps even his own son.

A dual game of cat and mouse is played out both in the jungles of Mindanao and in the halls of Washington, D.C. Nathan Dixon must deal with a battalion commander whose willing to set aside his battalion’s safety for personal gain. Scott Dixon must go head-to-head with a stubborn chain of command that refuses to alter a plan of attack, even in the face of a losing effort. And all the while, a new terrorist is rising to power in Southeast Asia, Hamdani Summirat, radical Islam’s most charismatic and strategic leader yet. And everything is falling perfectly into his master plan.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This pulse-pounding military thriller from bestseller Coyle (They Are Soldiers) depicts the U.S.'s current war against terrorism from the rare perspective of a small unit battling an elusive enemy. Army Ranger Capt. Nathan Dixon and his men are chomping at the bit to be dispatched to the Philippines to track down Hamdani Summirat, a charismatic Indonesian soldier and strategic mastermind turned jihadist behind a plot to found a pan-Islamic republic in Southeast Asia. But what happens when the biggest adversary is your own battalion commander? Egomaniacal Lt. Col. Robert Delmont sees the looming crisis as the ultimate springboard for his career and, regardless of the mounting body count, he's hell-bent on being perceived as the heroic leader, even if his inept tactics are putting his charges in mortal danger. Forced to take matters into his own hands, Dixon improvises with action-packed results. While the characterization isn't exactly deep, Coyle's masterfully labyrinthine plot lines, pedal-to-the-metal pacing and brutally realistic portrayal of army life make this another winner. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Coyle is a master at high-tech suspense."--Clive Cussler

“Pulse-pounding . . . Coyle’s masterfully labyrinthine plot lines, pedal-to-the-medal pacing, and brutally realistic portrayal of army life make this another winner.”--Publishers Weekly

“Harold Coyle is the best natural storyteller I know.”—Tom Clancy

“Harold Coyle is a superbly talented storyteller . . . the Tom Clancy of ground warfare.”--W.E.B. Griffin

"Coyle is best when he's depicting soldiers facing death . . . He knows soldiers and he understands the brotherhood of arms mystique and transcends national boundaries."--The New York Times

“Nobody knows war like Harold Coyle, and nobody writes it better.”--Stephen Coonts

“Harold Coyle has been dubbed the Tom Clancy of ground warfare and it’s easy to see why. He focuses on the grunts because no matter how fancy the weapons are, eventually the military has to send in men to take and hold new territory.”--The New York Post

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books; First Edition edition (November 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765344610
• ISBN-13: 978-0765344618
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #878,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #86 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers > Technothrillers

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poor editing, formulaic story, August 1, 2007

By 

T. Sobczak - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cat and Mouse (Hardcover)

I wanted a good Coyle book and was sorely disappointed. I expect better from Harold Coyle, but my nits may not be his fault except for the big long build-up to a quick short battle. It seems this story was thrown together to make a comment on the current Iraq situation (as well as army careerists, liberals, "real" soldiers, etc.) and then was passed to an editor whose first language isn't English. Or worse, run through some inane software program. Wrong words are used (phantom for fathom, winched for winced, etc.) throughout, sentences run on forever and the lack of proper punctuation, especially commas, will have you re-reading sentences to make sense of them. The errors truly detract from what could have been a good summer read.

I can only assume Tor-Forge/Tom Doherty Associates Books tossed this one out quickly for the money. The lack of effort shows in the little quality contained therein.

If you're a fan, add a star. If not, your reading experience may be truly disappointing. I hope Coyle forces the publisher to do better next time.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lousy editing spoils a pretty good story, November 26, 2007

By 

George Powell "powellpc" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cat and Mouse (Hardcover)

One of the reviews below says exactly what I was going to say. I have always enjoyed Harold Coyle's books, particularly "The Ten Thousand", an excellent retelling of Xenophon's "The Anabasis." This one, however, was a deep disappointment.

The story is a pretty good one, but having to wade through the miserably edited text killed it for me. I started bookmarking every elementary grammar, syntax, and word choice mistake, just to see how many there would be. There were a lot.

I cringed every time I saw the word "absconded" used for "ensconsced." And referring to a unit of Rangers as a "caulk" instead of the proper term "chalk" or the caliber of a weapon fired by an American character as 7.62mm (the AK is 7.62mm, the M-16 is 5.56mm) are mistakes someone of Coyle's experience should never make. When you write military thrillers, the military details better be correct, or the reader will suspend belief quickly.

It appeared to me that the editing of this book was outsourced to Bombay. And please, for God's sake, whoever edited this book should learn to use some commas! I had to read some of the sentences multiple times to divine the intended meaning.

This terrible example reflects badly on Coyle's previous excellent work.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of time., January 16, 2009

By 

Michael St James (Ogden, Utah) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cat and Mouse (Mass Market Paperback)

I haven't read Coyle for a few years. I wish I hadn't decided to revisit via this miserable example of military fiction. Others have said it: the editing is pathetic. This book reeks of disdain for fans of the genre. This book reminds me why I decided several years ago to move on to something else. In addition to the sixth-grade editing, the substance of the book is weak. The author dallies through 7/10ths of the book describing in detail how marionettes wreak havoc in our military services, then rushes through the climactic battle in a few pages. Weak, unsatisfying, insulting.