Winner Take All [Audio Cassette]

Sean Flannery (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1997

The United States and Russia are preparing Operation Pit Bull, a high-tech war game involving the best of the former adversaries' navies. At stake are not only new weapons systems and future arms sales, but also the integration of Russia's armed forces into a new, civilian-controlled order. But Old-guard hardliners in Ukraine, led by General Paul Normav, have their own agenda. July publication date. 2 cassettes.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An exciting blend of techno-thriller and spy fiction, Flannery's new book exploits a near-future setting. The U.S. and Russia are preparing Operation Pit Bull, a high-tech war game involving the best of the former adversaries' navies. At stake are not only new weapons systems and future arms sales, but also the integration of Russia's armed forces into a new, civilian-controlled order. Old-guard hardliners in Ukraine, led by General Pavl Normav, have their own agenda: provoking the longtime Cold War antagonists into a nuclear-tipped shooting war that will make Ukraine the center of a re-created Soviet Union. National Security Agency staffer Bill Lane suspects Normav's intentions. Can he convince his superiors and the Russians, while dodging assassins, before Pit Bull turns from an exercise into grim reality? Flannery ( Moving Targets ) constructs a plausible political scenario for a byzantine turn-of-the-century world in which friends and enemies are still sorting themselves out. He describes modern naval warfare clearly and accurately for general readers and is such a skillful storyteller that one of the novel's most exciting episodes involves an aerial duel conducted entirely by electronic simulation. His new book is a winner in fact as well as title.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In his latest, veteran thriller author Flannery (who also writes as David Hagberg) posits a military world so laid-back that Russia and the United States are planning mutual war games. Deep under the seas, though, hostile submarines lurk, ready to destabilize the games and thus provoke a new world war. Only one man can put the pieces of the puzzle together fast enough and credibly enough to force the plotters to retreat and wait for a luckier day. Will he make it? Flannery confidently expects experienced readers to keep up with his lightning turns. The location changes every few paragraphs, the technical settings are dense with high-tech jargon, the plot requires a cast list to keep track of the double crosses, and there is no big love or sex interest to distract from the intensity of the hunt. Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler will need to look over their shoulders as Flannery gains in his mastery of the intrigue-at-sea genre.
- Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress
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

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Sunset Productions (July 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564311805
• ISBN-13: 978-1564311801
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,936,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flannery gets his Sea Legs!!!, April 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Winner Take All (Bill Lane) (Mass Market Paperback)

The Navy has a long standing initiation rite for those who have never crossed the Equator (referred to as Polywogs). Once you have crossed the Equator and endured the initiation, you become a Shellback and earn a much sought-after certificate to atest to this fact. NSA analyst Bill Lane has a far more insidious initiation to endure as he hops back and forth across the Equator in Flannery's first installment of the Bill Lane franchise, "Winner Takes All". In this novel, Flannery's newest protagonist, Lane, must unravel the mystery surrounding the sinking of a U.S. spy ship off Russia's coast before the incident taints a planned War Game between the U.S. and Russia, called Operation Pit Bull, set to commence off the coast of Brazil.

Lane and company must contend with power-crazed Ukrainian Generals, renegade submarines, treacherous politicos, and . . . yes, assassins before he is able to defuse the powderkeg that Operation Pit Bull has become. Throughout it all Lane gets to spend time on half of the U.S. Navy's Atlantic fleet. He's hard to keep up with.

Sigh - how does this stack up to previous Flannery fare? Its AWESOME. Flannery is a master of back alley Coldwar shenannigans and he successfully brings that talent to bear on a totally believable post-Coldwar plot. He has oodles of sub-plots, most of which are attended to before he closes the novel. In previous outings he had flexed his considerable gift for military action sequences, however, he has honed that skill to crackling perfection in this novel. Not many people can make a combat simulation suspenseful. Flannery does.

The pace of Winner Takes All is very fast - much faster than previous works by Flannery. In earlier works he could be accused of redundancy as he digs in to the depths of his characters' motivations. And that redundancy tended to slow his previous works down a bit. That is not the case with this novel. There is very little redundancy - that's the good news. Unfortunately, there is very little character development, too. Perhaps in future outings with Bill Lane, we'll get to know him as well as we got to know Flannery's legend of previous works, Wallace Mahoney.

Characterization lapse aside, however, Winner Takes All is clearly one of Flannery's finest.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sean Flannery sees big trouble in Oil City, March 22, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Winner Take All (Bill Lane) (Mass Market Paperback)

Sean Flannery again is off to the races with an exciting book about the terrors of international relationships in a world whose relationships are based on mistrust, greed, hate, religion and compounded by too many weapons of mass distruction and twisted powerful men willing to use them to further their ambition. Sean weaves another great action tale, complete with marvelous descriptions of the weapons of war in actual use. It is non stop action. The story is slightly less than top rate only because for me, the motivation of the principal players is a bit forced, but never the less, a very good read

1.0 out of 5 stars Really Fiction, April 18, 2009

By 

Waldo Pepper (Vero Beach, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Winner Take All (Hardcover)

Flannery was supposedly a military analyst and speaker at CIA functions. How someone so uninformed regarding the USN rank structure got to that level explains why we have had such problems in recent years with military intelligence and the CIA. In his wild tail Winner Take All, he has a Navy LT as CO of a fighter squadron (should be CDR) a LCDR as XO of an aircraft carrier (senior CDR or junior CAPT) and a LCDR as the commander of an air group...CAG...(senior CDR)...and his civilian hero catching a ride on a SR-71 was just to much....I gave up on this far fetched drivel half way thru and won't read any more by this imposter.