Customer Reviews

Stealth

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

 

 

Guy Durham masterfully tells a spy tale with grity details of the processes along the way. He includes a myriad of interesting characters and plot twists in a live-action way, Bravo!

This book was a great read. Thrill-a-minute.

I had hoped to read more of Guy's work, but, as far as I know, he only wrote one more book.

I read this book a number of years ago and found it to be one of the best works of fiction that I've ever read. It is difficult to follow at times and I can understand how certain individuals may find it boring, but I would definetely recommend this book.

It's very difficult to review this story without spoiling it, so I decided that the concerns of the reader are more important, and that the author shouldn't be able to hide his story's faults behind some thin secrets, so here goes.

"Stealth", which is very much a cold-war thriller, offers the hapless story of a DIA analyst, Michael Pretorius, used to crack open a large-scale KGB counterintelligence operation on American soil. Pretorius retired from intelligence following a disastrous mission-gone-wrong in East Germany. Captured, he was cracked. The Russians let Pretorius think that his story held, but the Americans know that Pretorius's debrief was much more thorough than the spy realizes. Without letting on, Defense Intelligence Agency brings him back. They tell him that he's needed to pose as a scientist assigned to develop warplanes and give allow himself to be captured by the Soviets. In the process, he is to turn over much flawed information on the America's newest technological achievement, the BAT-3 Stealth Bomber. BAT-3 will exceed both existing stealth aircraft and soviet technology geared to detect them. With Pretorius in their control, the Soviets will have no idea that his information has been altered, that they will be sent down a myriad of blind alleys. Unfortunately, when captured, Pretorius is almost immediately recognized, and his interrogators go even deeper, fully cracking him. Pretorius regains consciousness knowing that he has been completely compromised and that the Soviets now possess everything, the intentionally distorted stuff and the very real data. Breaking free, he finds himself on the run from the Soviets but also from his own side.

SPOILER.BEGINS HERE
It takes very little time before the reader figures out the secret - there is no new Stealth bomber, it's all a sham to distract the Soviets from America's real weapon, "Star Wars". (Did I mention that this was very much a DATED cold war thriller?) I mean, if Pretorius isn't really an engineer, why tell him any genuine information on BAT-3? For that matter, why tell him that he's expected to be captured? In maintaining the sham, the Americans dragoon a captured Russian Tu-160 bomber tailored to look like the new American warplane. Going on the run, Pretorius will eventually learn that his handlers and hunters are one and the same, that there is a deeper conspiracy than the one involving the Russians - an idea that seemed old even when Coonts used it better in "Minotaur".
END SPOILER

The problem with Stealth, besides its failed twist, is the fact that it's not very thrilling. The author has very unexacting ideas of what a technothriller is supposed to be. None of his major characters are involved in the stealth aircraft (they do seem to know a lot about it - rattling off scads of data likely culled from a handy copy of "Janes"). Instead, they seem to know more about fine dining, the best wines, the hautest of cuisine. Before he can even get a chance to show his hero is really a genuine character, Durham insists on letting his remote home, his antique stove, his distinguishing palette and his ability to get a fine dinner whenever he wants. This was all okay in the days of James Bond, but the end of the cold war was supposed to be lead to more believable characters, and Pretorius is at least a few steps behind in that unlike Bond, he actually manages a few bits of genuine heroism between sips of Dom Perignon '56. Nothing Pretorius does makes much sense, and like the story, he goes nowhere real fast. Reading "Stealth" ominously reminds me of Pat Robinson - like Robinson, Durham populates his stories with men who are meant to be heroic even though they navigate nothing more than the menu of an expensive restaurant. In other spots, Durham exhibits the worst traits of genre authors - not content (or able) to excite the reader, Durham thinks he's in a position to educate the reader. At best, he doesn't so much educate as try to make himself sounded educated. Unfortunately, like those pricey menus, Durham's prose on the exotic sie of espionage look like a copy of something somebody else already wrote - he names the different gun-fighting positions rather than fleshes out the severity that drives men to choose one over the other.

This may be a bit demanding, but in reality the genera has done better. Looking to uplift myself, I picked up the original, "Flight of the Intruder" as well as "Firefox" and the newer "Dangerous Ground" by Larry Bond. Along with David Poyer and even Joe Buff, there is proof that the technothriller genre can still deliver good thrills along with prose that don't insult their readers.

This book was great. I loved the detail it went into. I especially liked the parts of action. The thrill just keep me reading. Thank you Mr. Durham.

This book really sucked! I don't know about the cassetes, but I can say for a fact that the book was so awful I was bored practically to tears. That's not to say that it was quite as bad as "Weatherhawk", but it was pretty close! Don't bother to buy or borrow "Stealth". Spend your money on more worthwhile books.