AGAINST ALL ENEMIES - Hardcover

Herman, Richard Jr

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0380973219 ISBN 13: 9780380973217

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1998

Synopsis

After a U.S. B-2 bomber is shot down during an attack on a chemical weapons plant, an innocent African-American Air Force captain stands accused of treason, violence threatens to erupt, and one brave lawyer must weed through the corruption and race against time to stop a major catastrophe and save an innocent man.

About this title

About the Author

A former weapon systems operator, Richard Herman was a member of the United States Air Force for twenty-one years, until he retired in 1983 with the rank of Major. He is the author of seven previous novels--including THE WARBIRDS, FORCE OF EAGLES, FIREBREAK, CALL TO DUTY, and POWER CURVE, all published by Avon Books. Mr. Herman currently lives and works in Fair Oaks, a suburb of Sacramento, California.

Reviews

Mixing high- and low-tech espionage, Air Force missions and politics into a credible and exciting plot with attractive characters and breakneck action, Herman's latest (after Power Curve, 1997) is a sure winner. When a Sudanese terrorist group is discovered to be almost capable of dispersing the Ebola virus ("the poor man's atomic bomb"), two Americans are sent on a secret B-2 mission to destroy the underground Sudanese lab?then are captured, tortured and almost certainly doomed. At the same time, in Missouri, Bradley Jefferson, an outstanding, African American Muslim Air Force captain, is charged with having passed mission details to the enemy. Trial lawyer and Air Force Reservist Hank Sutherland is recalled to active duty to prosecute Jefferson and is almost immediately plunged into a complex swirl of suspicious characters and conflicting motives. Adding nightclub strippers, FBI agents, a ruthless demagogue with sights on the presidency and a mysterious presidential adviser with a big, smart computer at his disposal, Herman keeps all of his plots spinning and readers of military adventure on the edge of their seats.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Former Air Force major Herman (most recently, Power Curve, 1997, about the first woman president of the US) produces realistic suspense tales that some call ``thinking man's'' thrillers that out-Clancy Clancy. Here, a military mission goes sour when an American B-2 bomber loaded with high-tech goodies fails in its attack on a Sudanese biological weapons plant and the crew is captured. Back in California at the ironically named Whiteman Air Force Base, an African-American (and Muslim) Air Force captain, Bradley Jefferson, is cast as scapegoat, charged with espionage, and readied for court-martial. Taking advantage of this trial is demagogue Jonathan Meredith, head of the superpatriotric First Brigade, who fancies himself an American Caesar and is running for President. His heroism during the Oklahoma Citystyle bombing of the new San Francisco Shopping Emporium (and his angry comments following the disaster) have given him great cachet, even though he's leading the country into a racial war. Government prosecutor Hank Sutherland looks likely to convict the Air Force captain, though Jefferson is defended by a famous defense lawyer. Echoes of the Dreyfus case abound, while legal issues stitch together much of the novels high tensions. Herman has a distinctive beat to his wickedly adroit military thrillers whose firestorms are averted only at the last second. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Look for major advertising for this new thriller from Herman, a member of the USAF for 21 years and author of the successful Power Curve (LJ 4/15/97). Here, a court martial after the crash of a B-2 bomber gets complicated.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An espionage case underlies Herman's formulaic military/legal drama. After a B-2 gets shot down over Sudan, a black air force officer is arrested for passing the plane's mission profile to Islamic agents. Hero Hank Sutherland, assigned to prosecute in a court martial of the officer, sets up shop at the B-2 base in Missouri, where he begins to doubt the officer's guilt (despite the man's guilty plea). Herman attaches extraneous scenes (riots in L.A. protesting the railroading of the officer; imprisonment of B-2 pilots in Sudan, paired with a Delta Force rescue organized by billionaire Nelson Durant and his omniscient computer Agnes), but the essential action occurs in a Whiteman Air Force Base courtroom. Sutherland's belief in the officer's innocence solidifies when the man is "assassinated," followed by an officer who commits suicide to presumably avoid prosecution. The finale is ragged and artificial, but the scenes of intercontinental air strikes and hand-to-hand combat will satisfy devotees of this genre. Gilbert Taylor

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0380973219
• ISBN 13: 9780380973217
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 376