Nightstalker

The new B-2 bomber is secretly used to knock out a Soviet radar complex that is capable of undermining U. S. first-strike capability, and the newly vulnerable Soviets subsequently launch glasnost reforms. 50,000 first printing. Major ad/promo. Tour.

A highly original premise--the first mission of the B-2 Stealth bomber--is shot down by hard-to-credit plot elements in this debut retro-techno- thriller. The time is 1984. A new Stealth "Black Ghost" fighter, adjunct ?? to the B-2, has been flying secret test missions over Soviet bases near Alaska, in violation of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. spy-plane agreements negotiated after the Francis Gary Powers U-2 incident a quarter-century earlier. But this time the "invisible" Ghost has drawn multiple radar probes and been downed in Soviet territorysince if it's 'downed,' it's no longer 'over' land? . The radar attack prompts U.S. fears that the Soviets have developed their own version of the Strategic Defense Initiative--fears confirmed when a Soviet pilot familiar with the project conveniently defects. In response, the U.S. sends a B-2 prototype, the Nightstalker, to destroy the U.S.S.R.'s master radar-control center near Moscow. Its pilot, Col. Duke James, and his crew are guided by the defector, Capt. Gregori Koiser, who believes that destroying the radar will encourage reform in the U.S.S.R. by demonstrating the government's vulnerability. Rizzi's narrative suffers because he fails to establish the Soviet radar as a threat the U.S. would risk general war to destroy. But he writes terrific action scenes (though they lose their impact through repetition) and the novel succeeds as a stimulating exercise in history as it might have been. words missing in last sentence? no, it's ok
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ducking missiles and evading MIGs, America's only Stealth bomber prototype sneaks into the Soviet Union to destroy the supercomputer-controlled radar system that threatens the world's balance of power--in Rizzi's first technothriller. It's eight or so years ago, and everything's the way it used to be--a golden age for technoterror when the Soviet Union was still the Evil Empire and America was still spending big bucks on technogear. Here, the superpowers are getting ready to sign a major strategic weapons agreement, but the Soviets are, of course, cheating. Using stolen Western computer technology, they have put together a radar system capable of using the entire frequency spectrum to track and outthink any invading aircraft. The free world's bomber force is instantly useless. Well, almost useless. Fortunately for free peoples everywhere, America's military industrial complex has been working on a supersecret technogizmo of its own. The prototypes of the Stealth bombers that were not to have been airborne for another six or eight years are already up and running. A defecting Soviet fighter pilot brings the news of the naughty radar to the Air Force, and, over the objections of the ever-wimpish State Department, the CIA and the military send their supposedly nonexistent radar-invisible superplane to Moscow to take out the pesky gadget. The Stealthy crew includes the Soviet defector, who knows that he'll be facing some very irritable ex- associates. And you thought the cold war collapsed over economics. Harrowing flight scenes aren't quite enough to compensate for turgid technospeak and an incredibly decisive and gutsy president figure. Stealthy plot takes too many direct hits from real-life events. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The Soviets have a nearly operational radar system which will be able to track the stealthiest American aircraft. The United States has two fully equipped B-2 Stealth bombers and a burning desire to eliminate the Russian threat. A Soviet defector, coincidentally an expert pilot familiar with the new radar, offers to assist. Stealth technology being an issue of great military interest even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this scenario could be the basis for a spellbinding thriller. Unfortunately, first novelist Rizzi overloads his frail narrative with an excess of technical information. The plot gives way to descriptions of equipment, none of the characters engage the reader's emotions--even the grammar is careless. Night Stalker is an unfortunate misuse of the author's extensive technical knowledge. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/92.
- Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Computer Support Svces., Ridgecrest, Cal.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.