Hunt the Fox

April 23, 2012
SEAL veteran Mann and bestseller Pezzullo (Inside SEAL Team Six) make their fiction debut with this solid military adventure thriller. U.S. Navy Chief Warrant Officer Tom Crocker leads the members of SEAL Team Six in the hunt for terrorist Abu Rasul Zaman (aka AZ), al-Qaeda’s number three man, who manages to slip through the team’s attack on a warehouse hideout in Karachi. Evidence seized during the raid points to a sex kidnapping scheme in France and to a mystery ship, the Syrena. Crocker and his men have to deal with the usual Washington weenies and a troublesome CIA contact in Pakistan, Lou Donaldson, among other minor impediments. The characters spend a little too much time reminiscing about their home lives and bemoaning the state of the world, but a steady stream of action makes this a worthy entry into the burgeoning SEAL thriller genre. Agent: Heather Mitchell, Gelfman Schneider Literary Agency.

April 15, 2015
Dispatching SEAL Team 6's Black Cell into anarchic Syria to secure a cache of sarin gas, Mann (Seal Team Six: Hunt the Falcon, 2013, etc.) shoots up another headline-inspired plot.Warrant Officer Thomas Crocker's a good guy, hard used, always ready to stretch orders for a mission accomplished. Crocker is a familiar yet nuanced character, suffering from angst-combat losses, marriage implosion-while dispatching Shabiha terrorists, "paid assassins working for President Assad," in Istanbul before he's even taken a meeting with a CIA handler and Talab, a Syrian source. There, the team leader learns that Black Cell's been ordered to retrieve a cache of sarin nerve gas stashed near Idlib, northern Syria. That means infiltrating through Assad's Russian- and Iranian-supported forces. Then there are the war-torn areas controlled by a major player called the Fox, Mohammad Farhad al-Kazaz, an "active ISIS jihadist, considered highly intelligent, with a fervent following and global ambitions." Black Cell members-SEALs "selected, in part, because their bodies produced an abnormal amount of an amino acid known as neuropeptide Y (NPY), which regulates blood pressure and also works as a natural tranquilizer"-dash through high-tension border checkpoints disguised as medics from Doctors Without Borders, detouring to treat incognito the Fox's wounded son, fight running battles in country, smash-and-grab the sarin, only to have it stolen later from a Turkish military base. Technophile readers get much acronym look-up material-MEATS insertion, AS532 Cougar, PG-7VR rocket-before Black Cell disrupts a cruise ship hijacking led by a beautiful traitor wielding a Bottega Veneta crocodile shoulder bag, despite interference from dilly-dallying desk jockeys and an arrogant CIA chief who leads by yelling obscenities. But there's no rest for Crocker and company-their high-value target must be nabbed off the streets of Paris. Cast Russell Crowe as Crocker for a cinematic thrill ride.

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