Good Friday

Unfortunately, it's all a mess - nothing comes together in this story, which remains a disjointed collection of scenes that do nothing to advance the plot. By the middle of the book, it's impossible to determine whether the Americans really have opted for their nifty strategy of preemptive invasion, whether anybody in Saudi knows or even cares about it or even what the consequences of that plan are. Key to "Good Friday" is that the Saudis haven't the capacity to defend themselves - they've got hot planes like the F-15, but they can't fly them that well (landing seems to be a particular problem for Holt's Saudis) - and they come off like the stereotypical Arabs you see on sit-coms. Also crucial to the plot is that the Russian invasion force will otherwise be overwhelming, an aspect of the plot I missed entirely (I mean an airborne force is nifty, but what else do they have; also wouldn't that force be mincemeat against ground-based defenses?; and how far can armed MiG-29's fly, even when one way?). The "techno" is thin here, and you'll get a better feel for the dynamics of flying a Harrier by picking up Microsoft Flight Simulator than this book. By the end of the book, it's impossible to determine what happened. But you'll have lost interest long before that.