Search - Edge of Battle (Jason Richter, Bk 2)

Product Description

Jason Richter and his high-tech unit Task Force TALON are charged with securing the Mexican border, where a terrorist band has been operating with impunity and enflaming the passions of the population.

Action junkies for whom characterization is not a priority will zip through this near-future techno-thriller from bestseller Brown, a sequel to Act of War (2005). The elite American unit known as Task Force TALON continues to battle a Russian terrorist group known as the Consortium, whose leader, Yegor Zakharov, seeks to exploit the porous Mexican border to infiltrate the U.S. and has allied himself with a mysterious Mexican smuggler of drugs and people. When U.S. Border Patrol agents are massacred, the National Security Agency adviser proposes such radical steps as using robots and nanotechnology to protect the border with Mexico. Some readers may find the lack of any radical Islamic threat in 2007 a bit hard to swallow (even with this imagined universe's capture of Osama bin Laden), while the escalation of tensions with Mexico, exacerbated by that country's naïve president who has jumped to politics from a career in television, also takes quite a bit of suspension of disbelief.

Obviously a sequel, and hard to follow some of the references if you didn't read the prior book, which I didn't.

This book left me a little cold. There was absolutely no character development, so the characters were little more than avatars: The techno-soldier with no leadership experience, The sergeant-major now an advisor to the president, the various other advisors who are the usual predictable political types, etc. There was little evidence that any of these characters had an inner life, a past, or an existence outside of the rather limited dialogue. The characters on the other side are only a little more fleshed out.

There are, on the other hand, long and detailed descriptions of the various military applications - both of thier physical attributes and abilities, and also thier tech geneology. There are also lengthy battle scenes.

The "battle" is largely centered around the illegal immigration and border issues with Mexico, with a seeming goal of pointing out that controlling the border only leads to worse problems on both sides. If you feel strongly about this issue, this may be a book you want to skip.

Like most all Dale Brown books, gripping plot and interesting politics and technology. This one's not to techno-intense, which was a nice change.