Book Review - Operation Hail Storm

An interesting technothriller, bogged down by a few odd tech fixations of the author. Operation Hail Storm's protagonist, Marshall Hail, is basically Bruce Wayne, if Bruce Wayne had decided take care of the world's problems with the vast resources of Wayne Enterprises, rather than becoming Batman and cleaning up Gotham.



After his wife and daughters were murdered in a terrorist attack known throughout the world as "The Five", Marshall found that the solution to his grief lay in removing the FBI's international most wanted from the world. A self-made billionaire genius who developed a new way to do clean nuclear power, Marshall has all the resources he needs to make his stealth fleet of drones that can reach anywhere and find anyone.

With the help of a hand-picked staff of experts and kid gamers, he goes after a shipment of ICBMs headed for North Korea. This one isn't a freebie though, it's at the behest of the President of the United States, and the CIA puts a minder on his ship - gorgeous honeypot Kara Ramey.

The plot moves along quickly, and Hail's drone fleet and shipborne armaments are just about plausible, as in the best of Dale Brown's books. Unfortunately, I found it remarkably difficult to care about these characters. Both Hail and Ramey are flat characters. Hail is brilliant, and motivated by revenge. Ramey is sexy, brilliant at languages, and motivated by revenge. None of the supporting characters merit a mention here, as they're just around to move some segment of the plot forward.

Add to that the author's odd word choices about certain pieces of technology. It feels as though Arquette wants the reader to feel like he really researched M4 carbines, XM307 ACSWs, and F-35Cs by the way he name drops the full system name. Unfortunately, he then throws away that assumed competancy with easily researched errors, such as chambering his M4s in 9mm (they use 5.56x45mm NATO) or having his F-35C perform a prolonged supersonic dash (the F-35 can't supercruise. Using the afterburner for the distance described in the book would have run the aircraft out of gas well before the dramatic climax).

Technical and character issues aside, the book resolves with a conclusion that suggests a much more interesting series to come. An unaccountable billionaire with technology to quietly kill anyone in the world isn't just a threat to the enemies of the United States, he's a threat to everyone. Operation Hail Storm isn't the best thriller I've ever read, but it was certainly intriguing enough for me to want to see where it goes.

Note: The author provided a free digital copy of this book for review.