Customer Reviews

Nsa 3

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

 

 

Deep Black, a section of the NSA, works mostly with communications; the agency spies through satellites and other devices that are so technologically advanced that their operatives are rarely placed in danger. Retired French agent Denis LaFoote informs former marine sniper and Deep Black operative Charlie Dean that his friend Mr. Vefoures is missing and that he was going to work an assignment for his former master.

Vefoures built an explosive more powerful than anything in use today. The Americans know that a French warhead is missing also, but remain unaware that the lost man and bomb are part of a plot designed by the Arab terrorist Mussa Duoar to blow up the Chunnel and cause a series of devastating shock waves to destroy coastal England and France. Deep Black is putting the pieces of the puzzle together into a cohesive plot, but time is running out to prevent this calamity from happening.

Nobody writes techno-thrillers better than Stephen Coonts does as his action-packed tales grip readers from start to finish with ever growing knuckle biting suspense that takes his audience to the edge and beyond. His latest tale DEEP BLACK: DARK ZONE does that and more with a host of heroes who just feel they are doing their job and some sly vile villains who have no compunctions about killing the innocent under the auspices of a "patriotic" cause. Chilling yet exhilarating, readers can count on Mr. Coonts for riveting entertainment.

Harriet Klausner

I have never written a review before but i just had to so others would not feel the same pain. I have read almost all of Coonts other books and bought this with anticipation. What a boring bunch of junk this was. It was obviously wriiten by the co-author and then had Coonts name put on it by the publisher to give it some credibility. Save your money and look elsewhere.

This was book was a page turner. Took me 2-1/2 days to complete it, it was the type of read that sucked you into the story. The characters were well developed, and the scenes had an almost "zen" like flow between them. Personally I felt this book was almost a cinema for the mind.

It's worth the money.

Once again you have the stars of the NSA(National Security
Agency,Charlie Dean,Tommy Karr,and Lia DeFrancesca back into
action. Lia has to first escape Korea before she can join her
teammates in France.While the head of NSA Ruebens is battling
for the security and existance of NSA the team has incovered a
frightening consparicy.There is a nuclear weapon missing from
the French stockpile.After an intense investigation it is found
to be in the possession of an Algerian terrorist.The villain in
this story(the terrorist) intends on exploding the nuclear bomb
and disrupting the landscape of France.This blast would alter
the coastline and affect the landscape of France.Charlie Dean
and the team are also having to deal with a traitor in their ranks as well.You have several exciting scenes at the Eiffel
Tower and the Chunnel.The story has an exciting ending as well.

Extremely well written. Very probable plot. Recommend anyone with a desire to read an action packed novel procure a copy and enjoy!

Deep in Africa, a stockpiled nuclear warhead disappears from a French base. In Paris, suspicious engineering data is recovered from computers. A Frenchman on the outs with his intelligence service is murdered. Another, a nuclear engineer has disappeared.

The Deep Black ops are set in motion after these disparate incidents, trying to pull together the common threads and uncovering not one but two insidious terrorist strikes in the planning.

Lia DeFrancesca, arrested in North Korea, is released, but not before she is brutalized. Her sassy, nasty personality won't let her ask anyone for help. Charlie Dean wants to help her but she won't let him near; meanwhile they must cooperate in Europe and North Africa as they move toward the plot's heart.

Tommy Karr aids a woman whose purse has just been snatched in London. She is not only beautiful, of course, but the US ambassador's daughter. Karr must bear the not-so-difficult burden of being detailed to guard her when she decides to go to Paris. What's harder is not letting her know that he's a spook.

Bill Rubens is involved in a custody fight over the aging former NSA head, who is suffering from dementia.
Besides Karr finally getting a romantic interest, what I liked best about this book is the eccentric mathematician Johnny Bib. It can't be easy making good reading out of a mathematician and computer geek staring at numbers and data and trying to find anomalies, but that's what Coonts and DeFelice do here with Bib, whose path through a good day is paved with prime numbers.

And that is important, because it's key to the Deep Black team's success, along with the hardware and communications, the field ops' derring-do, and Rubens' deft negotiating of Washington power plays.

This is the second Deep Black book I've read and unfortunately, it doesn't have the same high suspense and non-stop action as Death Wave (which coincidentally also involves terrorists attempting to use a nuclear blast to create a destructive tsunami). Either the co-author wrote most of Dark Zone or Stephen Coonts has improved a great deal since writing this book.

I found Dark Zone fairly slow for most of the book, although the pace does pick up towards the end. At least the portrayal of the characters and plot development is more realistic than is usually the case with this genre, with many of the characters showing that they are all too human and hence liable to distraction or fallibility. To give two examples, the performance of one of the agents is adversely impacted by the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, while the director of the Deep Black group is distracted by a legal challenge regarding his role in caring for his mentor, who has developed Alzheimers. Luck also plays a more realistic role; despite high levels of planning and high technology, the success of the terrorists' plots and Deep Black's attempts to thwart them is very much dependant on the unexpected.

This book also gets a good rating from me for realism - well as much as can be ethically provided, given value to real terrorists of the description of factual security measures. However, while the internet based technology used for communication by the terrorist groups realistically portrayed, I'm rather dubious about the use of implanted gamma ray sources to track the physical location of the agents and I notice that no technical detail is provided on how this technology works...

while the book kept my interest, it just didn't achieve the same level of nail-biting intrigue achieved in Death Wave. Even the climax, while fairly well written as it unfolds, fades away with an unrealistic finish leaving some loose ends.

Knowing how to start a book is one thing, figuring out how to end it is another.

As a techno thriller it is better than some, but occaisionally an author needs to consider reality. Without putting a spoiler into this review, the ending of this book just couldn't happen and have the good guys survive.

Leave the ending aside, I thought this Deep Black installment moved away from the razzle-dazzle (which was good) and left the action to the Deep Black Agents (I wish I could feel something for the characters).

This book rolls along pretty well.

Will I read another Deep Black, probably. Will I expect a masterpiece - uh-uh.

I bought this to listen to in the car while I drive but have thus far not had a chance to listen to it yet. However, I did check it out to determine if the MP3 format would play in my car, as I thought CD formats and MP3 formats were interchangeable. However, the MP3 format will not play in my car's CD player, and I am greatly disappointed about this. Consequently, I cannot give an accurate rating to this product at this time.