RETRIBUTION

In R. J. Pineiro's much-anticipated sequel to Ultimatum, Dalton, a hero as great as Stephen Coonts' Jake Grafton or Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, now works for the CIA. As Saddam prepares to strike at the heart of the United States, Dalton finds himself facing the ultimate horror: nuclear weapons on American soil.
Acquired from the Russian Mafia through an infamous international arms dealer, three warheads of mass destruction are smuggled into the United States. They are Saddam's revenge for his defeats at the hands of America.
Reunited with the beautiful Mossad agent Khalela, Dalton must untangle a web of conspiracy that leads from Jersey City mosques to the backwoods of Virginia, from Atlantic City casinos to the bayous of Louisiana. Only he and Khalela can prevent the weapons from reaching their separate targets: New York City, Washington, D.C., and the President's birthplace, a small town called Hope.

Arab nuclear terrorism on American soil isn't a new premise (Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre used it to bestselling effect in 1980's The Fifth Horseman, featuring Col. Muammar Khadafy as the villain), but Pineiro manages to wring an exciting techno-thriller about it nonetheless. Here the villain is Saddam Hussein, who vows revenge against President Clinton a year after American forces, including Navy Lt. Kevin Dalton?as detailed in the author's Ultimatum?have destroyed the tyrant's budding nuclear arsenal. Using contraband material from Ukraine, Iraqi terrorists plot to nuke three American cities, "retribution" for a nuking of Iraq, secretly by Saddam's own forces but blamed on the U.S. Dalton, now with the CIA, becomes involved stateside in the desperate search for the weapons and terrorists, although much of the novel's latter action focuses not on his quest but on the efforts in Iraq of older CIA hand Donald Bane and young Marine pilot Diane Towers to end Saddam's nuclear threat for good. Pineiro isn't the world's smoothest writer, but he knows how to wave a flag ("For as long as he could remember, President Bill Clinton had stood up for what he believed was right, regardless of the consequences"), and thriller fans should turn these pages at a fast clip, although they'll arrive at a wrap-up that's overly tidy and drenched in sentiment.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As the latest entry in the "What-Will-We-Do-About-Saddam" contest, this novel paints an Iraq in which the dictator has managed to assemble three nuclear weapons. In concert with a bunch of criminals, he plans to destroy three major U.S. metropolitan areas. Who will stop him? Kevin Dalton, the courageous aviator who starred in Piniero's last novel (Ultimatum, LJ 8/94), again teams with Khalela, the beautiful, workaholic Mossad agent. There's plenty of action, military and aviation lingo, and bad guys. Unfortunately, Pineiro has served up such a razzle-dazzle action scenario that the sheer pace of the novel overwhelms the reader. In the first half of the story, events overtake Dalton and company as the possibility of nuclear destruction becomes ever more likely. Through the rest of the book, people, planes, guns, bombs, and blood spin faster and faster. Retribution is fun, in a bloodthirsty manner, and will attract fans of Tom Clancy and Dean Ing. Pineiro knows how to write technothrillers, even if this is a bit over the top. For popular collections.?Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Computer Support Svcs., Ridgecrest, Cal.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Pineiro is back with Kevin Dalton, previously a navy pilot, now a CIA agent. Dalton is tough and ruthless; he carries a Beretta 92F pistol, and his hands are equally dangerous weapons. Iraq's Saddam Hussein has smuggled three nuclear warheads into the U.S. and aims them at New York City, Washington, D.C., and the Arkansas town of Hope, President Clinton's birthplace. It's Dalton's mission to stop this madness. Working with him is the lovely Mossad agent Khalela Yishaid. Solving the conspiracy takes them--and their cohorts--over much of the globe: from the White House and the FBI and CIA headquarters to the Kennedy Space Center, Istanbul, Baghdad, Nice, Kuwait, Moscow, Hiroshima, and even into orbit 329 miles over the Middle East. Pineiro has a discerning eye for detail, yet he never lets it slow the action-packed plot. George Cohen