Detachment Bravo

April 23, 2001
Unabashedly testosterone-addled, the ninth installment in the Rogue Warrior series cuts another swath through posturing bureaucrats and waffling military brass. Capt. Dick Marcinko, a Navy SEAL black ops specialist, teams with British SAS special ops Brig. Mick Owen and a select few men to stop a London bombing by an IRA splinter group. Too many screwups endanger the mission, cause a big PR snafu and land Mick and Dick in hot water with their bosses. Then they're assigned to track another splinter group, the Green Hand Defenders, who are brewing a plot to kill huge numbers of U.S. and British citizens in one hit. Snubbing the higherups, Mick and Dick follow a lead to Argentina, where Dick abuses an old nemesis who's now a CIA station chief when the man rejects Dick's warning of an attack on the American Embassy. After word gets out, the boys find themselves persona non grata in their own agencies, but remain committed to finishing their jobs any way they can. The ensuing roughshod romp over land and sea is a military vigilante's fantasy. The authors' habit of addressing the reader adds to the tongue-in-cheek downplay of the superhero action, but make no mistake—these irreverent characters skewer the establishment and trumpet opinions on what's wrong with the world today (e.g., political correctness, environmentalism) while upholding their pledge to defend it from terrorists. (May)Forecast:Copious vulgarity and violence, with an emphasis on male bonding and military lore, define the Rogue Warrior franchise—when WWF fans read, chances are Marcinko is one of their picks. Expect brawny sales.

May 1, 2001
Detachment Bravo is an Anglo-American counterterrorist team led by Marcinko and British general Mick Owen. Its target is high-caliber Irish terrorists led by dot-com billionaire brothers Gwilliam and Gerry Kelley. However, the tangoes (i.e., terrorists) target Bravo first, killing one of Marcinko's men as they try to take down an IRA outpost. After that, Bravo's mission is as much about vengeance as anything else, and as faithful Rogue Warrior readers all know and love, RW (i.e., Marcinko) is a bad man with whom to have a score to settle. Bravo's first step toward reckoning involves a hostage rescue in London; the next, thwarting an attempt on the American embassy in Argentina; and the next, another European situation. Finally Bravo goes to sea for a white-knuckle pursuit and termination of the Kelleys and their cohorts aboard a missile-armed yacht. What readers have seen in hero-author Marcinko's previous outings is on view in this one, too, along with more cogent commentary on the special-ops than in some of its predecessors.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)