The Arctic Event

October 29, 2007
James H. Cobb is no Robert Ludlum. Although he wasn’t a great prose stylist, Ludlum (who died in 2001) could keep a story engine churning like nobody’s business. Compared to him, Cobb is a plodding, mechanical, cliché-ridden hired hand. And Jeff Woodman can’t do much to make things more exciting—or even interesting—as he reads this tangled tale. Woodman has the vocal talents necessary to make the third-person narration work, and he does his best to create believable voices for the male and female members of a search team and their villainous adversaries—Russians, North Koreans and private mercenaries. But Cobb undercuts him at virtually every turn, the story moving like sticky syrup as a top secret Covert-One team of specialists hunt for a crashed WWII bomber and a deadly toxin that could destroy all life on the planet. Simultaneous release with the Grand Central paperback.

October 8, 2007
Ponderous prose and a less than credible plot-line weigh down Cobb's Covert-One novel, the seventh in a series (The Hades Factor, etc.) based on a concept created by the late Robert Ludlum. After the chance discovery of a crashed aircraft in the Arctic Circle, the Russians, who are on the verge of signing a landmark antiterrorism pact with the United States, inform President Samuel Castilla that it's a Soviet plane that went down in the 1950s while carrying a ton of weaponized anthrax. Castilla, who suspects that there's more to the story than the Russians are letting on, orders series Jonathan Smith, chief operative for the shadowy Covert-One intelligence service, and his team to investigate. Two women whose field skills are matched by their physical attractiveness join Smith, setting up predictable situations when they fall into the hands of the bad guys. Veteran thriller fans are likely to find the underlying premise behind the Russians' duplicity unconvincing.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2007
The latest Covert-One novel finds the intrepid, globe-trotting adventurers winging their way Arcticward to locate a half-century-old crashed Russian airplane that may be carrying two metric tons of weaponized anthrax. Butand this will come as no surprise to readers of high-concept adventure/thrillersother people are also interested in the downed plane. Oh, and the plane might also hold something even scarier than the bioweapon. Can Colonel Jon Smith and his team save the world once again? Well, of course they can: the fun in the Covert-One novels (Ludlum created the series shortly before his death in 2001) isnt wondering whether our heroes will emerge victorious but finding out how they will manage to overcome a new batch of seemingly insurmountable odds. The series has varied in quality, depending on its writers (some named, some not). This one, by the author of a handful of well-written thrillers, is quite good: fast paced, exciting, and boasting prose thats easier on the eyes thanmuch of Ludlums own appoint. Should be a winner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)