Echo Platoon

March 15, 2000
The Rogue Warrior--former SEALs officer Marcinko's self-image in all his coauthored books, autobiographical as well as fictional--returns in another exercise in hairy-chested readability. This time Marcinko is working, in the oil-rich Caspian Sea area, against efforts to destabilize the region to the joint benefit of the Iranians and the Russians, partners in an odd but entirely too plausible alliance. His enemies include former KGB general Oleg Lapinov and ruthless billionaire Sarkesian, "not to mention Murphy's Law ("If anything can go wrong, it will"--known in Marcinko shorthand as "Mister Murphy"), faulty equipment, poisonous spiders, the U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan, and hostile shooters of various degrees of proficiency. There are friends: the Israeli Ari Gal, female marine Major Ashley Evans, and the usual assortment of armed sidekicks "of high proficiency and extreme willingness to follow Marcinko into the jaws of hell. Marcinko details the process of leading them there in customary mouth-drying, palm-moistening, exceptionally informative style. New readers must, of course, make allowances for the "f"-word to an author who writes about close quarters' combat from Marcinko's unusually intimate perspective. Hardened Rogue Warrior fans will just salute and read. ((Reviewed March 15, 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)