Scarecrow Returns

Starred review from November 21, 2011
After the initial stage setting, the outstanding fourth novel in Reilly’s action thriller series that began with Ice Station (1998) blasts off and never slows. Marine Capt. Shane M. “Scarecrow” Schofield, last seen in the novella Hell Island (2005), travels to the Arctic with a group of civilians and his female buddy and second-in-command—burly, six-foot-two, shaven-headed Gunnery Sgt. Gena Newman—to test a variety of advanced weaponry. Nearby, the secretive Army of Thieves, led by a man known only as the Lord of Anarchy, has taken over Dragon Island, a mothballed Russian secret weapons testing site. The ante rises after the Thieves announce their intention to explode the Tesla Device, a weapon powerful enough to ignite the world’s atmosphere and wipe out much of humanity. The characters offer enough flesh and blood to be convincing, but it’s the high-speed action and battle sequences that propel Reilly to the front of the pack of this particular subgenre. Agent: WME.

November 1, 2011
Scarecrow is back. The Army of Thieves presents itself as an anarchist group made up of once-imprisoned Pinochet regime torturers supplemented by assorted African mercenaries, rebels and terrorists. Leading the diabolical cadre is the acid-scarred Lord of Anarchy. On the island, the Thieves control a colossal thermobaric bomb capable of setting the atmosphere of the northern hemisphere aflame. Reilly (Hell Island, 2006, etc.) launches his hero, USMC Captain Shane Schofield, call-sign "Scarecrow," against the Army of Thieves. Scarecrow, recuperating from a bloody mission which roused the ire of the French so much that they put a bounty on his head, had been assigned to a cold-weather weapons-testing mission at an encampment near Dragon Island. With a narrative line suitable for the latest XBox 360 got-to-have-it gamer edition, Reilly delivers nonstop action to propel Scarecrow and his team on and off the island. Characters come, play a part big or small and get shot or blown up, and sometimes come back to life, and it's all equal opportunity mayhem. There's a modicum of backstory, and the text is interspersed with maps and line drawings of weapons and facilities, but the escapades are exaggerated Moonraker-fantastical, with more gadget magic and without Fleming's Bond-character nuances. Think testosterone-bulked automatic weapons, stolen Ospreys, mini-subs and a machine-gun-toting robot named Bertie. Action comic overkill.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 1, 2011

A secret Russian facility in the Arctic has been seized by a team of elite commandos calling themselves the Army of Thieves. In four hours, the terrorists will launch the facility's doomsday missile, which will set the atmosphere of the Northern Hemisphere on fire. Capt. Shane Schofield (Ice Station; Area 7; Scarecrow), also known as Scarecrow, is called in to stop the deadly plot. Unfortunately, he and his team are about three hours away. VERDICT Reilly is the king of the action thriller, and he has written his best book in years. The relentless pace will leave the reader breathless. Fans who enjoy military fiction and blockbuster summer action movies will love the adrenaline rush. [See Prepub Alert, 8/1/11.]--Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2011
That's correct, Mr. President . . . we have five hours to save the world! And we're off! Fans will cheer the return of action hero Shane Scarecrow Schofield (Scarecrow, 2004; etc.) in Reilly's latest, irresistibly paced videogame-as-book. The Army of Thieves, a mysterious and well-armed corps of baddies led by a self-proclaimed Lord of Anarchy sits perched on Dragon Island, from whose arctic vastness it is about to unleash a scorched-earth doomsday weapon. Scarecrow and his motley bandincluding the ever-faithful Gena Mother Newman, augmented by some newfound French allies, a steadfast robotic sidekick named Bertie and its nerdboy keeper, Zackfly into the teeth of destruction in a hopeless, last-ditch effortmake that about 37 consecutive hopeless, last-ditch effortsto save us all. Skimming along on thin ice and thinner logic from one elaborate action sequence to another, pitting his heroes against polar bears, ranks of crazed berserkers, and colorful henchmen like Bad Willy, Big Jesus, and Typhoon, Reilly ups the ante on swashbucklers like Clive Cussler and Ted Bell by dishing out page after page of truly nonstop, explosive action, from cover to cover. Does he pull it off? Absolutely! Scarecrow's exploits are an action lover's wet dream.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)