Holy Terror

May 8, 2006
Marcinko and DeFelice deliver another high-octane entry in the long-running Rogue Warrior series (Vengeance
, etc.), starring a fictional Dick Marcinko, who battles and wisecracks his way through the world's bad guys. At a NATO conference in Vatican City, "Demo Dick," in his role as CEO of the Red Cell International security firm, delivers a get-serious-about-terrorism speech. Distracted by a waiter at the back of the room about to lob a grenade into the assembled dignitaries, Dick interrupts his remarks to nail the guy with a single pistol shot through the forehead. Shortly thereafter, Dick is caught up in a running battle with a dozen submachine gun–firing terrorists (minions of the shadowy Arab warrior known as Saladin) who are trying to seize St. Paul's Cathedral. The action—also featuring female Delta Force fighter Trace Dahlgren—catapults to Sicily, Cairo, Shanghai and the Thailand jungle, continuing almost nonstop to the final climax back in Rome. Once again, Marcinko and DeFelice's iconoclastic hero takes no prisoners while kicking terrorist butt in this breezy techno-thriller.

April 15, 2006
The Rogue Warrior's second gig with his new coauthor (erstwhile SEALs commander Marcinko is his own hero) is a gripping thriller involving a conspiracy reaching to the highest (or lowest) levels of the Roman Catholic Church, which Marcinko gets to deal with after embarrassing high-ranking NATO officials by pointing out the sloppiness of their antiterrorism measures. Sent into discreet exile in Italy, Marcinko starts building a picture of the emerging menace and tracks it to Thailand, where he faces a lady and a cageful of tigers, from which another lady, lethal but willing (the sort Dickie always seems to find in his chain of command), rescues him. By then, the RW team has assembled for the final showdown with the bad guys on the Vatican's front steps. The usual felicitous, fun RW combo of fast action, high-tech weapons, and some real insights into counterterrorist tactics.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)