Task Force Blue

When a band of terrorists breaches the Pentagon's security, Marcinko and his elite SEAL team, under the pressure of a murder charge, must stop the terrorists from destroying the U.S. government in order to establish their own brand of law.

Literature imitates steak tartare in these latest adventures (after Rogue Warrior: Green Team) of ex-Navy SEAL Dick Marcinko and his handpicked band of operatives. Here, the author has his fictional alter-ego and his underlings combat domestic terrorism?on an airline and at an oil rig, among other colorful locations. Marcinko the character also has a half-million-dollar bounty put on his head by an evil billionaire. Although the first-person narrative bristles with seemingly authentic military detail, readers are assured that "operational details have been altered so as not to betray current SpecWar techniques." Marcinko is less demure about his politics, taking to task politicians, the international arms trade and sloppy security precautions as he pumps for a highly trained and patriotic standing military. The author is running into some problems keeping the series fresh. The thin plot isn't sufficiently obscured by spilled blood and hand-to-hand fighting tips, and Marcinko's insider's voice, while still cocky, is beginning to explain details covered in earlier volumes. But those who enjoy tough tales about men whose purpose is "to annihilate, destroy, obliterate, kill, maim and terminate" will enjoy chewing on this.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In their third outing, Marcinko and his roguish warriors do violent, imaginative battle with America's home-front enemies. Following retirement as a US Navy SEAL, Marcinko embarked on an active if fictive career as a handyman for the military (his vastly entertaining exploits are chronicled in such blood-and- thunder opera as Rogue Warrior: Green Team, 1995). This time around, the salty Vietnam vet and his handpicked crew are detailed to staunch the illicit flow of heavy weapons and ammunition from government arsenals. Thanks to the cyberspace talents of a young petty officer who can hack into Pentagon computers, Task Force Blue soon learns its ageless leader is the designated fall guy in a power struggle pitting would-be usurpers against constituted authority. Despite the best efforts of their establishment foes, Marcinko and his merry men track a truckload of stolen arms from Detroit to Tampa, from whence it is shipped to an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. They storm the offshore drilling platform, which is owned by billionaire L.C. Strawhouse, and learn that the rig is used to supply ordnance to disaffected militia groups and drug gangs throughout the country. Back on dry land, the seagoing irregulars also discover that the ultraconservative Strawhouse (who tries to enlist Marcinko in his mad cause) has been equipping domestic terrorists in hopes their lethal rampages might permit a reactive putsch that could put him in the White House. While by no means taken with the incumbent chief executive or his wimpy underlings, Marcinko pursues the man who would be America's king to a heavily guarded command post in the southern California desert. In a climactic confrontation inside the fortress, he exposes and foils Strawhouse's sinister plot before dispatching its architect in decidedly imaginative fashion. Another walk on the wild side with the Marcinko mob. (Military Book Club main selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Marcinko adds more color to the best-selling success of Rogue Warrior: Green Team (Pocket Bks., 1995) and Rogue Warrior: Red Cell (Pocket Bks., 1994) in this novel about terrorists and the men who kill them.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Once more, "Rogue Warrior" Marcinko and Weisman parlay the former's experiences into a technothriller starring the former special operations soldier himself. This time, Marcinko's target is a billionaire with presidential ambitions who is planning a wave of terrorism to create demand for a dictator. Sent to investigate, Marcinko soon is on the run from both the billionaire and constituted authority and has to call on his old SEALs buddies to bring the enemy to ground. As usual for a Rogue Warrior yarn, this one is a gripping hard-boiled thriller bulked up with information on weapons, hardware, and the psychology of the warrior, all of which takes on the authority conferred by Marcinko's personal experience. Task Force Blue may not win any new fans for the salty tongued Marcinko, but it will please the dickens out of all the current ones. Roland Green