Amazon.com: Tunnel: Walter H. Wager: Books

Amazon.com
A master criminal who has pulled off a successful string of bank robberies, Gunther's looking for a really big score and an early retirement. He warms up for the big event by terrorizing the citizens of New York with a series of bombings. NYPD captain Jake Malloy, an ex-Navy SEAL who's on temporary assignment to the Joint Task Force on Terrorism, has enough on his plate already: the head of the Cali drug cartel wants him dead and has already sent two hit men to make it happen. But that's just a secondary plot line in this fast-paced thriller; the main action follows Gunther and his well-planned scheme to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel unless he gets $10 million. Meanwhile, Jake's girlfriend, Jo Velez, a DEA agent who's undercover with a Colombian drug smuggler, is trapped in the tunnel, unaware that her cover's been blown and her time is running out, too.

Wager spins a strong and suspenseful tale that's got Hollywood written all over it--no big surprise from a writer whose novels have already been turned into big action flicks (Die Hard 2, based on 58 Minutes; Twilight's Last Gleaming, adapted from Viper Three). Like his characters Gunther and Malloy, Walter Wager's a real pro, and his latest will keep readers on edge until the last page is turned. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
Wager is an experienced thriller writer (Telefon and 58 Minutes, among many others), so the comparative lameness of this excursion is an aberration. The chief problem is its tone, which is inappropriately jocular given that large numbers of innocent people are being hideously slain at frequent intervals. A rogue gang of former East German secret police still at work in the U.S. hit upon a scheme to extort $10 million from the city of New York. After proving their seriousness by a series of escalating terrorist attacks in different parts of the city, they seal both ends of the Lincoln Tunnel, with hundreds of cars and motorists inside, and threaten to blow it up unless the ransom is paid. There are additional complications involving the CIA and the Russians (still apparently trying to outsmart each other 10 years after the Cold War has ended). The girlfriend of the novel's dashing hero, police captain Jake Malloy, who is herself a Drug Enforcement Agency official on the track of a group of desperate Colombian drug smugglers, is among those trapped in the tunnel. Fortunately, Malloy is an ex-navy SEAL and is able to collect some of his old buddies in a daring underwater rescue effort that gets him into the tunnel in time to thwart the evildoers--but not before a pregnant woman, also trapped, almost gives birth on the spot. It's possible that in an action movie (and 58 Minutes did become Die Hard II), the piling up of coincidence and the casual, cartoonish tone would not seem so glaring, but on the printed page they stand out starkly. Still, no one can say this isn't a rapid read. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Tunnel (Hardcover)

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