Overview
Terrorism strikes at the heart of the American dream with a gruesome assassination inside the protected confines of the congressional offices on Capitol Hill. Japanese terrorist leader Reiko Oshima has been plotting her revenge from a breakaway Mexican state near the United States border - revenge against America, which has tried to kill her, and revenge against her old nemesis Hugo Fitzduane, who has eliminated so many of her group. But the forces of counterterrorism that might fight her are restrained by political gridlock and hesitation. A small group of American patriots chooses Hugo Fitzduane as the man best suited to respond. He knows his prey. He has hunted Oshima, and she has barely escaped death at his hands. Fitzduane, with his wife pregnant, is a reluctant warrior until Oshima attacks him where she knows it will hurt him the most. Aroused, Hugo Fitzduane goes to war.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Hereditary Irish warrior Hugh Fitzduane, returning from Rules of the Hunt (1995), is in America, aiding a congressional task force on terrorism that's struggling with a breakaway Mexican state that has built a supergun capable of delivering a mega-death payload. Fitzduane is, as before, fearfully noble and caring: "The causes had been just... but still there was a voice inside him saying that he was wrong and there had to be a better way." So he resists direct involvement until he learns that fierce Japanese terrorist Reiko Oshima has her finger on the supergun's trigger. Maimed by Fitzduane in a previous encounter, Oshima is now out for revenge. Going on the attack, Fitzduane first leads a raid on Oshima's isolated Mexican camp to rescue his pregnant wife, whom Oshima has kidnapped, then leads another, larger crew to put the gun out of commission and to kill the terrorist. O'Reilly's cast of dozens all sound alike; and when Fitzduane's peace-loving wife tells him, "You kill, but you care," readers will identify this novel as the action comic it is-though one not without appeal, particularly to those who enjoy high-tech military gadgetry and international intrigue. (Jan.)Library Journal
It isn't necessary to have read O'Reilly's first two thrillers featuring Irish counterterrorism expert Hugo Fitzduane to enjoy his newest case. Fitzduane believes that he has disposed of his nemesis, terrorist Reiko Oshima, in Rules of the Hunt (Putnam, 1995). He learns, however, that she miraculously survived and has set up headquarters in a renegade Mexican state to carry on her agenda of destruction, which includes the kidnapping and torture of Kathleen, Fitzduane's pregnant wife. Tension builds inexorably as Fitzduane, along with a crack team of old colleagues and new friends, works frantically to destroy Oshima and her henchmen before their dastardly plans can be implemented. Opening at breakneck speed that doesn't let up until very close to the end, this page-turner is almost cinematic in its descriptions. The details about counterterrorism ring true, and the writing ranks with the best of Ludlum. A good buy for public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/96.]-Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, SeattleKirkus Reviews
Irish hardcase Hugo Fitzduane goes another resourceful round with the Japanese terrorists he fought to a bloody standstill in Rules of the Hunt (1995).Invited to Washington for briefings by a Congressional subcommittee committed to keeping constant pressure on the Global Village's anti-Western outlaws, the newly married laird of Duncleeve Island comes to America with his pregnant wife Kathleen, the fair colleen who nursed him back to health after his close- quarters encounter with the violent nihilists of Yaibo (a.k.a. Cutting Edge). While Hugo (an adjunct officer in the Irish Rangers) checks out an arms expo held at Fort Bragg, however, the terrorists strike the airborne base and its host community. Led by the vengeful Reiko Oshima, a Yaibo hit squad wreaks gory havoc, kidnaps Kathleen, and retires to a well-equipped military installation (called the Devil's Footprint) in Mexico's desert highlands. Among the more modern conveniences at this south-of-the-border facility are long-range cannons that Oshima (whose lover was slain by Hugo) and the breakaway state's strongman ordered built to rain death and destruction on American cities. Desperate to spike the superguns, US officials (hobbled by a hands-off-Mexico policy) provide Hugo with covert assistance for a rescue mission to the remote redoubt. He leads a shoot-and-scoot raid that frees the imaginatively mistreated Kathleen but leaves the crafty Oshima alive and the ultraheavy artillery apparently operable. Finally convinced that America faces a clear and present danger, the wimpy President dispatches Special Forces to wipe out the Devil's Footprint. In the course of an apocalyptic assault, elite military units lay waste to the Yaibo, and Hugo has a climactic confrontation with Oshima.
Although O'Reilly includes a rather full measure of preachments on the West's indifference to the latter-day threat of terrorism, he tells a mean adventure story—chock-full of high-tech power and chivalric glory.