Larry Bond's First Team (Bond, Larry) [Kindle Edition]

Larry Bond (Author), Jim DeFelice (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The troops of the small Special Ops force in this latest novel by Bond (Red Phoenix, etc.) spend about equal time bantering with each other and blowing up stuff: buildings, vehicles and even thugs who stand in their way. Aside from its inherent entertainment value (which is considerable), this is a good formula because it allows Bond and coauthor DeFelice to smoothly fold in an enormous amount of exposition and to introduce, over the course of a hundred or so short chapters, the individual members of Joint Services Special Demands Project Office, known to insiders as simply the Team, for the novel is the kickoff of a projected series about the new war on terror. Smooth, shrewd Bob Ferguson leads them, engineering their escape from a tricky trap in Kyrgyzstan early on. The MacGuffin: a planned meeting with Russian wheeler dealer Alex Sheremetev in Kyrgyzstan goes awry when Ferg finds Sheremetev's murdered corpse. Before you can say frameup, local police have arrested Team member Jack "Guns" Young (a Marine and language expert) for the crime. It's up to Ferg, Connors (the old man and explosives expert) and Rankin (the young hothead) to rescue Guns and find the real killer-and that's just for starters. Back in Washington, Corrine Alston, chief adviser to the new president, disdains the maverick modus operandi of the Team and Ferg in particular, so much so that she flies to Russia to confront and control him. Her slow journey from skeptic to supporter is the novel's most entertaining and mainstream plot thread, the reader on her shoulder as she's immersed in the rough and tumble adventures of the Team. This is a solid series debut.
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From Booklist

Bond, the author of a string of best-selling techno-thrillers, has achieved the sort of status that lets a writer stick his own name right in the title of his book. This is the first installment of a series of novels spotlighting twenty-first-century warfare: wars fought not by armies, but by small groups of highly trained experts, in other words, by intelligence not firepower. At the center of this novel is the First Team, a small unit created by the CIA to "address unconventional threats in an unconventional way" and currently operating undercover in the former Soviet Union, tracking radioactive waste that could, in the hands of a particularly clever terrorist, be used to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting world. The team is an entirely fictional creation, but Bond and cowriter DeFelice (who's also collaborated with Stephen Coonts and Dale Brown) combine research and imagination to make the whole premise seem completely plausible. The team itself--a CIA officer, a marine, and two Special Forces commandos--is a lively quartet of characters, trading witticisms and good-natured insults as they try to save the world from an evil villain. In fact, Bond may finally have learned how to create characters who feel like people, not stick figures or functions of an overly complicated plot. Fans of his muscular techno-thrillers will thoroughly enjoy this new novel, and clamor for more First Team adventures. Readers who've tried a Bond novel, and failed to find much to enjoy, ought to give this one a try; they'll be pleasantly surprised. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 3367 KB
• Print Length: 370 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0765307111
• Publisher: Forge Books (May 1, 2004)
• Sold by: Macmillan
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001T4Z8I0
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #358,187 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars gritty and edgy, February 19, 2005

By 

Douglas De Bono - Author of No Safe Harbor (Minnetonka, mn United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Larry Bond's First Team (Bond, Larry) (Hardcover)

A lot of people did not like this book. Folks you could do much worse. This book moves quite fast and you need to pay attention otherwise, you will lose the plot.

The writing style for this book reflects the anxiety of the main characters as they track the components for a dirty bomb through Central Asia. If that was the intent then the authors achieved their goal.

However, I think they missed an interesting subplot by not playing up the friction between Corrine (the lady lawyer) and Ferguson (who is trying to get killd before he dies of cancer).

This is an average thriller against the back drop of the War on Terror.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I beg you not to read this book., June 10, 2004

By 

Bill Garrison (Oklahoma City, OK USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Larry Bond's First Team (Bond, Larry) (Hardcover)

I have a new "worst book I've ever read" on my list after trudging through this garbage for the last three weeks. First Team has two things going for it. First, the book summary on the jacket because that is the only hope you have of following the plot, and second, the captions beginning each chapter that indicate where the characters are.

Larry Bond's books have all been high quality novels, even though the last one he wrote wasn't as good. But he hasn't written anything in awhile then returns with this effort with co-author Jim Defilice. I don't know who wrote what, but somewhere along the line, they really botched this book up.

The story involves a team that operates outside the law tracking terrorists. It has CIA man Fergeson, two special forces memberts Rankins and Connors and a marine called Guns. They are on the trail of terrorists trying to prevent a dirty bomb being set off in the USA.

I seriously considered quitting this book after about 100 pages. At this point the problem wasn't the storytelling, but the horrendeous dialogue among the "First Team". I guess the authors were trying to add character to these people, but every other word was a joke or a lewd comment. This detracted from the story because it often seemed forced and out of place and incredibly unrealistic. I doubt soldiers trade crass jokes in the heat of battle.

The horrible dialogue tapers off somewhat and then the horrible story takes over. The authors can't describe scenery at all and do a horrible job of telling the reader why characters are in Iran, then in Russia, then split up into teams, then together. Why are they following a train? Why do they stop? How do they get to a US airbase from following a train? Those easy questions are never answered.

This book has the typical computer nerd working in a messy office at headquarters and he finds some useful info and shares it with the team in the field. Or at least I think he did. What he finds out and tracks makes no sense. The authors mention a May 11 memo. Where did this come from. Did I miss its introduction early in the novel?

The president of the USA sends a sexy 26 year old attorney who amazingly has gone through special forces training out in the field to go with the "Team" and to make all key decisions. Ridiculous.

The "authors" do a horrible job of setting up the premsis for the existence of the "First Team." They do a baq job of writing characters and dialogue. They have no clue about telling a story.

This book is horrible. Please don't read it!!!!!

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but nothing new., June 15, 2004

By 

Slick (Charlotte, NC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Larry Bond's First Team (Bond, Larry) (Hardcover)

First off, Larry Bond and Tom Clancy are my favorite writers for fiction. However...

This is not like any of Larry Bond's first three books: Red Phoenix, Vortex, and Cauldron. It does resemble his latter two of Day of Wrath, and Enemy Within.

I found it a good book and easy to follow, but not to the level of his first three. It is fairly typical of most terrorist plotted techno-thrillers out today. It is worth buying, but only in the bargain bin or paperback.

I highly recommend Michael Farmer's "Tin Soldiers"