SOAR: A Black Ops Novel [Hardcover]

John Weisman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2003

Black ops master storyteller John Weisman creates a scenario so real that if he weren't claiming to write fiction, SOAR would be classified top secret.

On the eve of a groundbreaking U.S.-China summit, a covert CIA operation to bug a secret nuclear test site in western China goes terribly wrong when the American black ops team is captured by a vicious fringe group of Islamic terrorists. With the clock ticking, the president scrambles Major Michael Ritzik, the young CO of Sword Squadron, a top secret element of the Army's elite Delta Force, to rescue the hostages without leaving any fingerprints.

Its mission: impossible -- exactly what Delta trains to do. But then things go from bad to worse. U.S. intelligence learns the terrorists have not only ambushed a Chinese army convoy, they have also hijacked a highly unstable nuclear weapon and armed it. Beijing dispatches its own special forces in hot pursuit. Now Ritzik must use speed, surprise, and violence of action to beat the Chinese to the target, grab the spooks, and disarm the nuke.Failure is not an option.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The title acronym is short for Special Operations Air Regiment, and is one of dozens of technical abbreviations whose easy use lends Weisman's gritty adventure some of its believability (footnotes aid the civilian reader). The story begins in the Xinjiang region of China, where Sam Phillips leads a small group of CIA operatives posing as a British documentary film crew. Their true mission is to investigate reports of Chinese nuclear weapons caches, and their capture by a small band of IMU (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) guerrillas sets off alarm bells at the White House. The president summons Delta Force leader Mike Ritzik for advice on a rescue mission. The maverick Ritzik suggests a small covert team, in marked contrast to the show of force advocated by the secretary of defense. The proposed rescue is complicated by the captors toting a nuclear weapon, ready to detonate at any moment, in one of their trucks. For this and other reasons, the president assigns Ritzik a special partner, Tracy Wei-Liu, deputy assistant secretary of energy and an expert on the detonation of said devices. Using short, punchy sentences and quick cuts, the story moves back and forth between the condition of the captives, the situation in Washington and the exploits of Ritzik and company. Weisman (coauthor of nine books in the Rogue Warrior series) imbues every stage of the operation with appropriate complexity and suspense. His clear, precise prose should make the story riveting for both fans and newcomers.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Richard Marcinko's collaborator on six Rogue Warrior novels resumes his solo career with a knowledgeable, fast-paced, near-future thriller. As U.S and Chinese negotiators sit down for arms talks, Uzbek terrorists capture covert American observers of a Chinese nuclear test site. The Uzbeks soon possess a Chinese nuke, too, which they plan to present to their Arab allies. The thefts launch a race between Chinese special operations forces, who want to get the nuke back, and U.S. operators who also want the bomb. The clock is ticking faster for the U.S. because of the hostages, who must be rescued before the Chinese discover them and break off negotiations in a blaze of publicity a la the U-2 spy-plane brouhaha of 1960. Weisman draws on his own and many others' covert intelligence and special operations experience to craft a convincing scenario and a great many gripping scenes and believable characters. A definite treat for thriller fans. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (August 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006052409X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060524098
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,010,502 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Seven time New York Times bestselling author John Weisman is one of a select company of authors to have their books on both the Times nonfiction and fiction bestseller lists. He pioneered coverage of Naval Special Warfare when he co-authored the No. 1 NY Times bestseller "Rogue Warrior," then conceived, created, developed, and wrote eight best-selling Rogue sequels.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Seymour Hersh called his 2004 novel "Jack in the Box" 'The insider's insider spy novel.'

Bestselling author Joseph Wambaugh says of Weisman, "Nobody writes better about the dark, dirty, and dangerous world of the CIA..."

Former CIA case officer and bestselling author Robert Baer says, "John Weisman takes the reader into the very heart of CIA and its special operations."

John's latest special operations novel based on true events is "KBL - KILL BIN LADEN." The book will be released on November 15, 2011.

John lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Misnamed, but a really good read., October 2, 2003

By 

T. E. Vaughn (Chattanooga, Tennessee USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: SOAR: A Black Ops Novel (Hardcover)

Having quickly tired of the Rogue Warrior series that John Weisman co-authored with Dick Marcinko, I was not too sure about reading his solo effort. I am certainly glad that I did. This is a real tale of adventure and action, and except for the obligatory (it seems) device of having a woman interjected into the mission, it reflects the sense of duty of special operations warriors. The spec op troops this time are Delta operators who are beginning to get the publicity that the SEAL community started drawing about 10 years ago when Marcinko told his story on "60 Minutes." Since Eric Haney's book on Delta and the popularity of "Blackhawk Down," Delta's being pulled out of the shadows. So far, the speculation about them and what they do has not been too outrageous, but I'm sure that's just around the corner.

Weisman's book is long on accuracy in many areas, not the least of which are tactics and weaponry. And I can personally vouch for the fact that in any critical operation, if anything is going to give you major heartburn, it will be comm problems. And comms are a problem for the Delta operators in this book... just like real life. There will be some complaints about characterizations (shallow but who needs a character's family history in a war story), stereotypes (they're stereotypes because they're true), and miltary derring do (face it: military people ARE brave and dedicated, especially those who make a career in special operations and doing the hard things their government requires).

No, this is a good book. Hopefully there will be others of like quality. However, why Weisman chose to name the book SOAR (an acronym for the Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the "Nightstalkers") escapes me. And a note to the publisher: find a better jacket for the next one.

Hoo-yah! John. And keep them coming!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars SpecOps Techno-Pulp Fiction, September 4, 2003

By 

J. Chang "eva05" (Milltown, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: SOAR: A Black Ops Novel (Hardcover)

Most known for his co-authoring of the Rogue Warrior books with Richard Marcinko, Weiseman has written a new piece of fiction without everyone's favorite SEAL. What we have is a Delta Force sends bad guys to the bone yard with big guns type thing. It's fun, for lack of a better word.

There's plenty of detail here for just about anyone who loves information about weapons, gear, surveillance, etc. Lots of acronyms, shooting, explosions, military slang, etc.

Actually the only annoying thing is how superficially some of the politics are treated in the story. The author takes every opportunity possible to snipe at Clinton, despite the fact that the problems that drive the antagonists of this book(and in real life) have dated back to before WW2. For people interested in the history of terrorism I very much recommend ex-CIA case officer Robert Baer's two books "Sleeping with the Devil" and "Hear No Evil".

But flag waving and stupid politics aside, this is fun read. I read it in around 3-4 hours. It reads very quickly. There's no thought provoking deeper issues here. No deeper understanding of who the bad guys are, where they came from and what were their motivations,just good old fashion prowling and growling (I guess that's supposed to be the Army's version of "shoot n loot" from the Marcinko books).

If you like the Rogue Warrior books, you'll probably dig this too. Enjoy ^_^

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Black Ops, August 27, 2003

By 

Rudolf A. Enders (Merritt Island, Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: SOAR: A Black Ops Novel (Hardcover)

As a lifetime career CIA special operations officer, I feel N.Y. Times best selling author John Weisman has reached a new plateau with his latest book SOAR. This action-packed thriller brings the reader deep inside the black world of special operations where America's finest warriors take on extremely important and dangerous missions in the World's most remote and dangerous locations.

Although SOAR is fiction, the characters are taken from known veterans of America's tighly knit special operations community. Weisman brings realism to the story through excellent research on such topics as high altitude, high-opening (HAHO) parachuting, demolitions, sniper techniques, ambushes, weaponry, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), fixed wing and helicopter operations, modern technical devices and basic unit tactics. In this regard, SOAR is a must read for even the most experienced current operator. The author further adds realism by shifting back to past historical events, relating the story to black-ops heroes known to us all.

I highly recommend this edge-of-the-seat action thriller. You will find it difficult to put the book down.

Rudy Enders, CIA Retired. Former Chief, Special Operations Group.