Steel Tiger [Mass Market Paperback]

Mark Berent (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 2004

Vietnam, 1967. America's most daring fighter pilots faced their greatest challenge in a desperate war. Now on his second tour, Major Court Bannister is hunted by a new, more determined breed of enemy and haunted by his brother's shocking act of treason. Captain Toby Parker fights a personal battle against alcohol, while flying on the edge of disaster, and Lieutenant Colonel Wolf Lochert wages a cross-border war against all enemies, regardless of the uniform they wear.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Steel Tiger" was U.S. Air Force code for the northern panhandle of Laos, a crucial sector of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This sequel to Rolling Thunder focuses on the efforts of the Air Force in the summer and fall of 1967 to cut the vital supply line. Berent's indictment of the Johnson administration's micro-management of the air war over North Vietnam is well meant but stolidly written; the novel takes fire when he switches from political commentary to military action. The story is told through characters introduced in the earlier novel: fighter pilot Court Bannister, forward air controller Toby Parker and special forces lieutenant colonel Wolf Lochert. Fast-paced accounts of strike missions and fighter combat are juxtaposed with an effective subplot describing North Vietnam's air defenses through the eyes of a Soviet pilot. Berent keeps readers in the cockpit until the final pages, notwithstanding such incongruities as "Thor's balls!" used as a Russian expletive.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Berent's (Storm Flight, LJ 9/15/93) latest popular novel is a heroic tale featuring U.S. fighter pilots during the Vietnam War. The text is conveniently spliced with hard rock music and accompanied by sounds of guns and aircraft. The characters have dual conflicts, e.g., Major Court Bannister's brother is a traitor, Captain Toby Parker battles alcoholism, and Lieutenant Colonel Wolf Lochert fights corruption. The vignettes are uneven as is Paul Ikena's narrative performance. Nonetheless, the work will appeal to the action-oriented crowd. For large collections.
James Dudley, Copiague, N.Y.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: I Books (August 31, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743486730
• ISBN-13: 978-0743486736
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 3.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,618,579 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lt Col Mark E. Berent, USAF (Ret), was born in Minneapolis, graduated from Cretin High School in St. Paul, and Arizona State University with a BSME.

Berent began his Air Force career as an enlisted man then pilot training at Columbus and Laredo. He served three combat tours, completing 452 combat sorties, first in the F-100 at Bien Hoa then the F-4 at Ubon. He spent two years in Cambodia flying things with propellers and, through a fluke, ran the air war for a few weeks.

He has logged over 4300 hours of flying time, 1084 of those in combat missions in the F-100, F-4, C-47 and U-10 over South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. He has flown 30 different aircraft.

His decorations include the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross with one oak leaf cluster, Bronze Star, Air Medal with twenty-four oak leaf clusters, Vietnam Cross of Gallantry, Cambodian Divisional Medal, and numerous Vietnam Campaign ribbons. He also earned US Special Forces and Cambodian jump wings.

Since retirement, he established international operations for the sale of spares for combat aircraft; flew foreign aircraft such as the Swedish Viggen and RAF Jaguar and Hawk; wrote numerous articles for the Air Force Magazine; and was a pilot/reporter for the Asian Defense Journal. He wrote five Vietnam airwar novels (Rolling Thunder, see www.markberent.com). Recently flew his T-6 in airshows.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Steel Tiger is a great war story., February 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Steel Tiger (Mass Market Paperback)

Do you like a book that is able to take you to the front of a war and able to make you feel that your there with the characters? If you do, then you'll love STEEL TIGER by Mark Bernet. This book is able to put you in the cockpit of an F-4 and in the heat of battle in the air and on the ground. Mark Bernet is able to give you the feeling that you have known the characters,your their best freinds, and they are telling you the story as you sit and have a cold one. Court bannister is the main character and the most believable: he si a major in the air force serving our country in the Veitnam War. STEEL TIGER is a book about the special bonds that are fromed between pilots an d co-pilots in the air and on the ground. It teaches that if you don't trust the person you fly with, than its most likely that you may end up dead or a prison of war. It portrays that the war is about people, those on both sides,(good or bad) and the stories that they can tell you. It shows that even though you have to fight the other side that they are not all bad people. The book was well writen and full of exiting dog fights and bar room fights that make you feel like you are in the air force and with the men of the Veitnam War.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vietnam ---Tom Clancy style....., June 1, 2003

By 

patrick (Melbourne Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Steel Tiger (Mass Market Paperback)

More than mere paperbacks novels, reliving of a painful though now fabulously nostalgic era. A tale of good men in a bad war, I think i saw someplace,or on the review comments on back jacket, to be honest I didnt expect as fine a read as I ended up with from both 'Rolling Thunder' and 'Steel Tiger, having bought the second at a Sunday market 2nd hand for a song, I soon realized I had 'discovered' Mr Berent, who is a decorated USAF Vietnam pilot, someone who flew F4 MiG CAP over Hanoi, for those who know what that means. Mr Berent weaves fictional characters like gifted pilots but troubled souls Bannister and Parker, Special Forces rough-n-tough 'Wolf Lochert', who calls people 'ScheissKoph' for those with high-school German, but will punch your lights out for taking the Lords name in vain, and senior Pentagon AF-command types like 'Whitey' Whisenand, into the fabric and knit of a tale and an atmosphere with real characters such as Lyndon Johnson, Robert Strange McNamara ( an auto company civilian president who was placed in charge of Americas forces and war, echos of Mr Rumsfeld) and real-life Vietnam Airforce ace Robin Olds.Many chapters begin with a tom Clancy style geo-political or techical background preface, and like Mr Clancys chapters this really works, the depth of research, as well as the reminisce. The tale rollocks along, through triumph and tragedy, with a Vietnamese double-agent among Locherts special forces cadre, and Berent is able to take you in wind-whistling ride through Bannister and Parkers air combat missions, with loads but not too much technical explanation of jet-fighters, weapons and dogfights, and why not, Mr Berent went there and did it himself, with a silver-star and DFC in recognition.
I am a fan of Mr Berents Vietnam air-war series, his characters and his writing of this Hendrix/Animals/Byrds war and era, I wound-up sending to Amazons 'Fiction Addiction' bookshop in SC to get 'Phantom Leader' and 'Storm Flight', the remainder of a 5-part trilogy? and which were hard to obtain in Australia. I commend that store and what I bought.If you like a comparable writing style with Clancy, you like credible though exciting fictional characters combining with a historical President Johnson deciding war strategy as he sits on bathroom ceramic furniture, and if you are fascinated by the halcyon events and atmosphere of Americas most divisive and lamented war, youll like Berents long punctuated saga.

4.0 out of 5 stars Steel Tager, April 27, 2011

By 

Arthur Vern Kelsey (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Steel Tiger (Hardcover)

Top notch wwriter keep you on the edge of your seat, Keep up the good work, also very good service on my order of the book , Thank You.