Customer Reviews

Larry Bond's First Team: Angels of Wrath

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Larry Bond is an excellent techno-thriller author. Just a couple of weeks ago I gave a five-star review to his "Dangerous Ground," one of the best stories of submariners I've read in years. Perhaps that's why the disappointment I feel about "Angels Of Wrath: Rirst Team" is so sharp. The book just isn't Larry Bond. (It is co-authored by Jim DeFelice.)

I dub this a Lego novel. It's like the authors wrote out a bunch of action scenes on notecards and than simply laid out a grid, like building something with Lego blocks. The result is a techno-thriller that's all fluff and no depth.

The "hero" is Bob Ferguson. Hey, let's make Bob a maverick in the CIA, someone who has major difficulties in taking orders and playing well with others, particularly his superiors. Now let's make him a "team leader" of the "First Team," a multi-departmental group that's supposed to squash threats to the United States. Hmmmmmm, what else can we do for Ferguson. Hey, what a great idea! Let's give him a possibly terminal illness and have him take pills for it once in a while!

Of course, Ferguson is ever so sophisticated. A ladies man, of course. A polylinguist. A oenophile and connoisseur of single-malt scotches. Is that enough? Not by a long shot. Ferguson's father was a legend in the CIA and Ferguson, the son, seems to have some psychological problems with that. But not to worry: every bad guy in the world seems to be frightened of Ferguson, who by the way, is also a master of disguise.

In sum, Bob Ferguson is a total caricature, not even as believable as a comic book hero.

Take this joke of a character and put him into a circus that is supposed to be a plot. First we have the extremist religious cult that is trying to foment a major terrorist attack in the Middle East in order to trigger the Apocalypse. The FBI thinks it has arrested everyone after one of the cultists is blown up in Egypt. Oh my gosh, they missed his sister who has been a sleeper for decades. Off she goes to the Middle East to find an arms dealer who will sell her the weapons necessary to trigger the end of the world. Believable? No.

Arms dealers. The book is loaded with them. They all fear Bob Ferguson who has been dispatched first to find the cultists and then track down an Iraqi terrorist. Corrine Alston, a 26 year old special counsel to the President with no background in intelligence or covert operations is told by the President to "supervise" the operation. Of course, Ferguson wants nothing to do with his boss, who is running her own operations (yes, plural) in the Middle East. All of the arms dealers drink champage. All the time. So does Ferguson. Just can't be a tough guy without a flute of champagne in your hand.

There are backstories aplenty. Too many. And there's action: every two or three pages another corpse or two or ten is thrown on the pile. The action rarely has anything to do with anything except filling pages.

And then there is the rogue Mossad agent, an alcoholic, still grieving over the murder of his Muslim wife at the hands of terrorists. Oh yes, he has plans too.

In sum, this is a sharp departure from Larry Bond's normal excellence. Every page is painful to read. The characters have no credibility. The plot is simply a mishmash of pointless action scenes. Compare this with most of Bond's earlier work and you have to ask if something horrible has happened to Mr. Bond.

Whether it's the co-author or falling victim to fame and greed, I hope Larry Bond will put this part of his life behind him and get back to writing some of the best techno-thrillers of the day. This certainly is not one of them.

Jerry

I have been a big fan of Bond's for years. However, when good authors take on "co writers" I get the idea the co writer does the books. I have seen this with several other Authors. This doesn't even seem like a Larry Bond book. It is worth reading but I wish I had gotten at library rather than buying. I hope Mr Bond goes back to writing books himslelf even in this series. Thanks

Larry Bond is great, but in the tradition of a growing number of authors, this is a collaboration book that leaves you wishing that it was just one author. Overall, the book is a good read, but I like Larry Bond's solo writing a little more.

This second book about the First Team takes you to the Middle East and America.It features the First Team leader Bob Ferguson
a former CIA agent.He is joined by First Team member Thera
Majed,a paramilitary and an expert on Middle East affairs.They are working to head off two different crises.A member of the
Seven Angels is killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem.The
Seven Angels is a radical religious group who wants to trigger
a catastrophic showdown in Jerusalem.This group has roots in the
United States as well as ties to the Iraqui resistance movement.
This group(Seven Angels) also has ties to an arms dealer named
Nisieen Khazaal.They make several attempts to capture the arms
dealer.The First Team also has several runins with Middle East
terrorist groups.The First Team also lands in the middle of an operation being conducted by Israel's Mossad.All of these factors combine to make for a decent read.It will keep you
wondering if the First Team can head off a massive religious war.

Here, I think Mr. Bond was trying to help a friend, Mr De Felice to publish a book by printing his own name on the cover.
The story is not too original, the "Dumb Arab" bit has been done to death, and the last thing we need is another writer selling a story about Middle East terrorists.
I don't remember so many authors writing about terrorism when the Timothy Mc Veigh blew up a Federal building in Oklahoma City on April of 1995.

An amateur effort at best. Lary Bond again show us his "softer side" by endorsing this book.

While there is plenty of action and a plot that moves at a brisk pace, it still leaves you at the end with a ho-hum type of reaction. Bond's loyal readers expect better. While it may be better than most of the genre, it's not quite good enough.

There were at least 2 dimensions to these characters, and the plot held together, however unlikely. Nice action, and a couple of good lines: One, "I often thought of patience as a deadly sin," or something to that end. I'd read it in an airport, but not on a long flight.

A very disappointing Bond/Felice novel. The book moved ponderously along, trying to make sense of a very disjointed plot. Not an attention grabber, nor very fulfilling for Bond fans.