Customer Reviews

Dead Hand

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Dead Hand is an example of what happens when a good author runs out of ideas.

The plot is appealing enough - we Americans LOVE renegade Russian generals - but even that may be starting to wear a little thin. Unfortunately the characters need lots more work, the story line seems to be jumbled collection of disconnected scenarios, and the small unit combat actions - the passages which Harold Coyle has always been so good at - are pretty much absent from the book.

Mr. Coyle's musings on the nature of military leadership are borrowed from Ted Fehrenbach's study of Korea, "This Kind of War" and the description of the meteor strike reminds me a little too much of Niven and Pournelle's "Lucifer's Hammer".

Dead Hand leaves me with the feeling that the book was written in a great rush to meet a contract date. It also leaves me feeling that a good writer has become burnt out.

It has been a long time since I have been this disappointed by an author whose work I used to love.

In DEAD HAND, Mr Coyle produced an indifferent plot, paper thin characters, no focal point, and an awful ending.

There appeared to be no particular main character, the combat scenes were nowhere nearly as descriptive as they have been in his other novels, and he ended the book leaving numerous loose ends.

No need for me to go on, other than to say that I recommend passing on this book. It was awful.

I have read all of Harold Coyle novels todate and eagerly looked forward to his latest. Unfortunately , this one is not up to his usual high marks. His characters lack depth and it is almost as if he had tried to put too many into too small a book. It reads more like an outline than a novel.French Foreign Legion, SAS, Special Forces, Russian Commandos,Falling Comets, Political Upheaval, all too much for such a short book.Coyle should go back to writing about what he knows best," Soldiering!"
Anyone of the characters that he describes , so briefly, would have made a great story. I do hope his next is back up to par with his earlier novels.

Having read Coyle for many years and been amazed at his ability to transfer the feeling of men in combat, I was disappointed by this offering. It reads like a B Movie or an Episode of the old "Combat" TV show. Nothing is new, everything is old hat, you can just about write the story as you read along. The tough Scotsman, the soldier with the misunderstanding wife, the soldier torn between duty and his mentor. Way under the level that I would expect from Coyle.

It seems as if Mr. Coyle had to deliver a book, any book, to his publishers, but he delivered a novella. If you reduce the type font and take out the myriad blank pages, the stories maybe 200 pages, and not very compelling. At no time did there seem to be any suspense or real danger that the "ultimate" would happen. If he's just going to go through the motions, he should at least put a warning in the preface.

The title says it all in more ways than Coyle planned.

I have greatly enjoyed most of Coyle's books in the past, so I expected more of the same in this book. How wrong I was. The plot concept is ripe for quality action and writing, but Coyle instead spends more time waxing poetic about the philosophies of command and the ethos of combat. Of the 298 pages in the book, maybe 8 are vintage Coyle; the rest are drawn out editorials and dull character descriptions. There is next to no character development whatsoever; aside from their respective nationalities, each of the main characters is indistinguishable for the other. I honestly struggled to find the will to finish this book, and I agree with other reviewers that it appears that Coyle was either on a deadline or his new publishing house has an axe to grind.

Many writers who acheive success seem to shrink and rely on increasingly tired formulae. Not Harold Coyle. His mastery of the craft continues to grow. "Dead Hand" turned out to be a two-night read. If I didn't have a deadline project to deal with, it would have been read in a single night. The plot spans the globe. His use of an extraordinary device sounds and feels plausible. He manages to imbue eight (8!) major characters with lives of their own, in addition to a slew of minor characters, passing through and adding credence to the story. The combat, necessarily, is not on a grand scale. Rather the main conflict is between small, highly-trained and very deadly commando and special forces teams. The conclusion is what it should be: small steps lead to intense combat and believable heroic acts by friend and foe alike. The one-page epilogue compels you think about the sacrifices made by so many unheralded warriors to preserve or acheive freedom. Reading this novel provides the same thrill as first readings of Clancy and Ludlum, before they became "production line" writers. If you enjoy combat thrillers laced with global politics, "Dead Hand" will provide you with a fine, exciting experience.

Jerry

Being a big fan, I really looked forward to "Dead hand." Having read it, I have to ask, did Harold Coyle write it?

It is loaded with errors. Some of this is simply poor editing, for example, a tank hull is called a "haul" several times, Mount St. Helens is called "Helena," the NSC (National Security Council) is called "NSA" (acronym for National Security Agency).

Many errors are more egregious.

The Army Chief of Staff launches a strike. The Chief does not command any forces or have legal authority to order any strikes. A combatant commander, which the Chief is not, has to do that.

U.S. Special Forces are mentioned but not Delta Force, the U.S. unit most likely to be involved in the mission described.

The special ops team members are described in terms that would embarrass even green regular force units. They seem immature, mercurial, and uncooperative.

A weapons expert "jerks" a trigger. Only a steady pull will get the shot on target.

A Special Forces colonel makes a phone call home to his wife when he is in isolation before a mission. Strictly forbidden.

British SAS unit is described with troopers that are corporals and privates. In the real SAS they have sergeants and higher.

SAS has a lot of military courtesy and use of "Sir" when an NCO speaks to an officer team-leader. Not done in the real SAS.

SAS goes on a mission with a team made up of expendables found in the regiment rather than with an established team. Very highly unlikely.

A shaped charge is described as being so powerful it will go through a missile silo blast door designed to protect a silo against all but a direct strike by a nuclear weapon. The charge will not only pierce the doors but the missile warhead section and then down to the missile fuel below. And one man can carry this charge. Absolutely incredible.

The shaped charge principle of operation is described in detail twice, incorrectly, and poorly both times.

A French Foreign Legion demo sergeant fabricates shaped charges himself when many rugged and expertly designed and fabricated ones are available.

The shaped charge is air dropped and then carried cross-country with the blasting cap installed. This violates basic instruction on explosives. The blasting cap is always carried away from the charge, preferably by someone other than the charge carrier, is well padded and protected, and only installed at the firing point.

A special ops team leader is switched mid-air enroute to the drop zone.

At the last minute, a scratch special ops team is put together from the remains of several national teams. It departs on the big mission without planning, organizing, or rehearsing because "it would take too much time." The team leader doesn't even know who is carrying the demolitions crucial to the mission.

A special ops team moves cross-country headed for the target. All are staring down following the steps of the man in front. This violates basic patrol discipline and would not be expected in elite units.

A 40 millimeters grenade is described as being "baseball sized." In fact, 40 mm is almost exactly golf ball sized.

The saddest thing about this is that the research to get it right would have been so easy. There are several excellent non-fiction special ops books around including "Blackhawk Down" by Bowden and "The Commandos" by Waller.

As a big military novel fan, Harold Coyle is one of my favorite authors. No one captures the individual emotionality of going to war -- the apprehension, the camaraderie, the burdens of leadership, and the hardships of combat -- better than Harold Coyle.

Mr. Coyle's novels usually highlight a specific theater of operations, be it Iran (Sword Point), Egypt (Bright Star), the Civil War (Savage Wilderness and Until the End, which, incidentally, are two of his best), Columbia (Code of Honor), Mexico (Trial By Fire), or, more recently, Slovakia (God's Children), rather than playing on a world stage, like say a Tom Clancy.

In his effort to feature elite troops from the British SAS, the French Foreign Legion and the American Special Forces Group, and to pit them against experienced Russian commandos, Mr. Coyle attempts one of his most ambitious works to-date.

The international premise, and its establishment in the first half of the novel, unfortunately, is highly implausible. Without divulging all of the specifics, let's just say it involves an asteroid hitting the earth and a rogue Russian general using this natural catastrophe to leverage his regional nuclear weapons to blackmail Moscow and the West. The regional commandeering of the missiles is made possible by a secret doomsday mechanism (code named Dead Hand, and reminiscent of the doomsday device in the movie classic, Dr. Strangelove), which is triggered coincidentally by the errant meterorite.

Fortunately, Mr. Coyle's emotional description of battle is without peer, and true fans of his will find the second half of the book as riveting as any of his earlier works.

Mr. Coyle's story, on a geopolitical plane, doesn't achieve the level of intrigue and complexity of a Tom Clancy novel. But even Tom Clancy doesn't capture the emotional view from the field as well as Harold Coyle. Mr. Coyle's novels aren't just about war and conflict; they are about personal sacrifices made for the accomplishment of a greater goal (which is, of course, a great metaphor for life in general and why his books are so meaningful).

If you'd like to experience the timeless and universal anguish and elation felt by all men and women (combatants) in war; and if you'd like to believe that there are causes in this world more noble than those faced by most of us in our everyday lives, Harold Coyle's Dead Hand is a very satisfying read. I enjoyed it immensely.

This book didn't have the same amount of military action as other Coyle novels like "Team Yankee" or "Sword Point," but with all the great characters it didn't matter. One of my favorites had to be Sergeant-Chef Stanislaus Dombrowski of the French Foreign Legion. He provided a great insight into the kind of brotherhood formed among troops in elite units. I also really liked Russian commando Colonel Demetre Orlov. He's what I would call subtly ruthless and loyal to the State, until he's ordered to go after the General in charge of the Perimeter missiles about to go off due to an asteroid strike in Siberia. Toward the end of the book Orlov is seriously confused as to what his course of action should be.

Coyle did an excellent job fleshing out all his characters. Some of his descriptions of the devastation caused by the asteroid and the harsh conditions the NATO special ops units must face were pretty good. Not too many combat scenes, but Coyle made up for it at the end with a rollercoaster ride of a battle at the last Perimeter silo. The epilogue where one SAS officer gives his view on duty to one's country perfectly summed up the theme of this book.

Coyle has proven that he has grown as a writer. Quite frankly, I think some of his characters in "Dead Hand" were better than Colonel Scott Dixon and company in previous novels. Bully for Mr. Coyle and "Dead Hand."

Although my thoughts are not as negative as many of the reviews listed here, Dead Hand is clearly not among Coyle's best works. The action and frequent battle scenes that typically fill Coyle's works were largely absent here. Instead, Coyle takes the reader on a journey of preparation that leads to the action at the end. During the build-up, Coyle goes on at length about the duty, honor, courage and valor of the soldier, regardless of rank or nation of origin. While this is clearly a noble position to take, the presentation of this theme seems to overwhelm.