THE DEFENDER #8 JUSTICE DENIED BY JERRY AHERN

Copyright 1989.

David Holden has been rescued from Peru. Now they have to smuggle him back to the states. The FLNA has its own sources and first hijacks a coast guard ship to intercept the boat. When that fails they then try to smuggle him in on a container ship. The FLNA also almost gets them. No sooner then David is back that he finds the country has really gone down hill. President Makowski has federalized the National Guard and they are confiscating guns under his new executive order. Word reaches Holden that the real President is about to awaken from his coma. Makowski has set in motion plans to have him assassinated. Holden with his Patriots and Luther Steele’s FBI task force must infiltrate a hospital in Virginia to rescue the President.

With this book the series was really getting good. The assassination of the President has the power mad Roman Makowski consolidate his power. FBI director Cerillia is also killed at the end but not before hiding away proof that Makowski is the one responsible for the murder. The series now is establishing the fight against the US government as well as the FLNA. We already see that the country is sinking more and more under a authoritarian regime that cares little about the rights of the citizen. A side subplot with British agent Kearney sees him continue to try and infiltrate the FLNA. He finds a woman named Linda Effingham who he falls in love with and she joins his cause. A sad but powerful ending when they fail to prevent the assassination of the President.

THE DEFENDER #6 ESCAPE BY JERRY AHERN

Copyright 1989.

David Holden has been captured and taken to Peru by the FLNA. Captive of some vicious drug dealers he manages to escape thanks to Maria. Now they have to avoid the hired gunmen and figure out a way to get out of the country and back to the states. Meanwhile Geoffrey Kearney a British intelligence agent has infiltrated the U.S. His mission is to kill Dmitri Borsoi so the FLNA activities are disrupted in the U.S. Seems the British aren’t too keen on the world’s leader of the free world falling to Communism. While in America he manages to help foil an assassination attempt on FBI agent Luther Steel and his family. The acting President Roman Makowski wants him gone and has sent assassins to finish him. Rosie Shepherd the lover of David Holden now assumes command of the Patriots in his absence and launches a bold attack on an FLNA base. She also contacts Thomas Ashbrooke the father-in-law of Holden for help in getting Holden back. Ashbrooke is a former smuggler now living in Switzerland. His connections to the underworld help them find out where Holden is located and organize a rescue mission.

This book has a lot going on. We get to see that Rosie is just as capable a leader as she takes charge of the Patriots. We find out that Makowski the acting President is working to consolidate his power by taking out people that could oppose him. We get introduced to two main characters. Geoffrey Kearney a British agent that is now in the U.S. to kill the head of the FLNA. Another is Thomas Ashbrooke who has some shady connections in the war on these terrorists. Ends with the wheels of a rescue mission in motion as Holden loses Maria and vows revenge on the drug lords. A good solid adventure book.

THE DEFENDER #5 ENTRAPMENT BY JERRY AHERN

Copyright 1989.

The FBI with the help of David Holden raid Cedar Ridge Island. They manage to destroy a key operation base of the FLNA. Dimitri Borsoi is not letting this be a setback. First he manages to steal some missiles from an Army base. Then he uses them to attack a building where a security conference is being chaired by the President. The attack kills the Vice President and puts the President in a coma. This makes Roman Makowski the radical speaker of the House the acting President. If this isn’t bad enough the FLNA sets a trap that captures David Holden the leader of the Patriots. After some sadistic torture by Borsoi, Holden is taken to Peru. As captive of a viscous drug lord they plan to either torture Holden for info or get him to switch sides. Luckily a prostitute with a heart of gold helps Holden and he manages to escape.

This book starts to turn up the action. We get the President in a coma and VP killed. This will have some serious consequences in later books. It also starts the adventures of Holden in Peru as he tries to get back home and avoid the evil drug lords. This was a good book with lots of dark stuff like people getting set on fire alive. Holden’s reaction was very believable as he seems to lose it after this incident. A good solid book.

THE DEFENDER #4 DECISION TIME BY JERRY AHERN

Copyright 1989.

The Patriots have found out that the leading candidate for major of Metro is secretly a member of the FLNA. So Luther Steel the FBI agent goes to Chicago to investigate. He finds out that the candidate is selling drugs to finance the FLNA and is also a pedophile. Meanwhile David Holden and Rosie Shepherd go undercover at a rich island development called Cedar Ridge Islands. The place is a front for the FLNA to smuggle terrorists into the country and set them up with phony IDs. This results in a confrontation with Dimitri Borsoi who is running the FLNA and him seeming to fall out of a helicopter over the ocean. Then they have to expose the mayoral candidate and ensue the elections happen in spite of FLNA attempts to stop them.

So in this book we get to see that the Patriots and the FBI are informally allied. Holden finally confronts the main baddy in Borsoi and it seems that he is killed. But he survives and at the end makes sure the winning mayoral candidate is killed by a suicide pilot crashing into this home. I enjoyed the introduction of a new character in Rocky Saddler a old Korean war vet and now private investigator. A real badass. A good book if not the greatest but the story is soon going into more exciting directions.

THE DEFENDER #3 OUT OF CONTROL BY JERRY AHERN

Copyright 1988.

David Holden and his Patriots continue their fight against the Front for the Liberation of North America(FLNA). Now it looks like he will have an ally. The President has secretly decided to ally with him. Through the FBI director Cerillia he contacts Holden. With Luther Steel an FBI agent and his special team they manage to capture an operative. Taking him to a secret base they interrogate him. Only an FLNA operative has infiltrated the FBI. They find out that Cerillia’s aid is part of the FLNA. That soon they are going to attack a special law enforcement conference in New Mexico between representatives from The U.S., Canada and Mexico. Now it is up to Holden and Steel to stop their attack.

The third book in the series gives Holden and the Patriots an ally. The President is sympathetic but has to act clandestinely because the Patriots are still an illegal group. We are introduced to Luther Steel and his special task force which now works with the Patriots. This now gives the group some much needed help in their fight. We find out that the government is infiltrated by the FLNA. It is revealed that the upcoming mayoral election for the fictional city of Metro may have a possible FLNA man in the lead. This was a good solid entry in the series. It continues to set up this world and it’s characters. We get some more on how ruthless the FLNA is when they kill the families of defense contractors. A interesting story filled with action and plot development.

THE DEFENDER #2 THE KILLING WEDGE BY JERRY AHERN

Copyright 1988.

Rufus Burroughs died stopping the nuclear power plant attack and now David Holden is the leader of the Patriots. First business is burying Rufus next to his wife. Then it is getting back to organizing the Patriots to take on the FLNA. The FLNA has meanwhile hired a British assassin named Warlock. He has two missions. To kill David Holden and the current director of the FBI. The hit on the FBI director is supposed to be made to look like the Patriots did it. David and his girlfriend Rosie get involved with a fight with the FLNA in their abandoned subway system of Metro. Then they have to stop Warlock from killing the FBI director.

The second book isn’t as good as the first. The part where they are in the subway system does drag a bit. I will say that this series is much more darker then the Survivalist. First we have the main character’s wife and children killed in the first book. Now in this one they rescue a young 12 year old girl from the FLNA who was kidnapped and raped after killing the girl’s parents. Then this girl dies in a shoot out with the police. This book is setting up that the police are out to get the Patriots as much as the FLNA. Also sets up that the FBI director is interested in working clandestinely with the Patriots. The book starts to establish the romance between Holden and Rosie. A flawed book in some ways but showing promise for the series as a whole.

THE DEFENDER #1 THE BATTLE BEGINS BY JERRY AHERN

Copyright 1988.

David Holden is a history professor in the fictional southern city of Metro. He lives a quiet life with his wife and three children but that is soon to change. For a KGB agent named Dimitri Borsoi has come to start a terrorist movement to overthrow the government. Recruiting street gangs plus bringing in foreign terrorists they form the Front for the Liberation of North America the FLNA. One of their first attacks kills his wife and children. The governments heavy handed response eventually force Holden to join with The Patriots. A group of former military and police that are fighting the FLNA. He has to stop the FLNA from destroying a nuclear reactor. A success that sees the leader killed and Holden assuming control of the group.

The first thing I noticed about this book way back when was how similar to the Chuck Norris movie Invasion USA. I mean he practically lifted the plot from the movie. A KGB agent that starts a terrorist campaign with street gangs and foreign terrorists. This book was a fun read that seemed a little far fetched back when it came out. Nowadays the FLNA could be Antifa and many of our major cities do look like warzones. Politicians and the media downplaying the problem. Yeah Jerry may have been very prescient when it comes to predicting the future.

Holden is a very likable character that is just an ordinary guy caught up in events. Of course he is a former SEAL so it explains why he is such an expert. The idea of a terrorist organization using violence to get a government to crack down and in effect drive more people to the terrorists is a real theory. It was used by many groups including the Shining Path in Peru and Islamic groups in Egypt and Algeria in the nineties. None so far had the desired effect. Ahern wrote the popular The Survivalist series and this while not as good is an enjoyable action series from the eighties and nineties.

A WAR OF SHADOWS BY JACK L. CHALKER

Copyright 1979.

A small town of Cornwell, Nebraska has its population go catatonic. Soon Boland, California has it’s residents become blind. Berwick, Maine the population becomes severely mentally retarded. McKay, Maryland the population comes up with a case of complete memory loss. It soon becomes apparent that the United States is under attack. Some unknown terrorist organization is launching biological attacks against small town America. Panic ensues and the President declares martial law. A director of the FBI recruits a former radical to infiltrate the terrorist group. He uncovers a plot that involves the highest levels of the government to seize complete power.

I decided to get this book because it had an intriguing cover and an interesting plot. So a conspiracy of rich elites have infiltrated all levels of government. They use some useful idiot leftists to cause a crisis. Then panic ensues and they are given absolute power to implement their agenda. Yeah that couldn’t happen in real life. I was amazed that a book written forty years ago is more relevant then when it first came out. It is all about how people will give up their freedom in times of crisis for security. Naturally they get neither freedom or security. We seen this with 9/11 and more recently with the pandemic. There was some truly creepy stuff in that this conspiracy would keep those they though they might use later on prisoner in a mental institution. They would regress then to be 4 years old so they could be easily controlled.

I found this book one of the best I have read in a long time. It kept my interest from beginning to end. It also had a happy ending. Basically the laws and bureaucracy this conspiracy created was used against them. It was a very poetic justice that happened. If you want to read a really fascinating thriller I would recommend this book.

HIT RADIO BY DAVID ROBBINS

Copyright 2012.

Franco ‘Big Frank’ Scarvetti has a problem. His psycho son has killed a made man from another family. Now he has to get his son out of Las Vegas to hide out. So he manages to acquire a radio station in Yuba City. Louis who is nicknamed Cry Baby and his crew go off to a small town to manage this station. Cry Baby runs the station as any type of Mafia operation. A combination of shaking down local businesses for ad revenue to stealing and sabotaging the competitor’s transmitters. Val one of the crew falls in love with the secretary of the station. It all comes to a violent end as the mob enforcer The Iceman comes and pretty much kills everyone.

I love David Robbins Endworld series and it’s spinoffs. So I figured I would try some of his other genres that he has done. This sounded interesting and I loved it. Cry Baby is a complete over the top nutcase psycho. His management style is somewhere along the lines of Genghis Khan. Every character has a distinct personality. His crew all have their own little nicknames based on their character. Pretty Boy because he loves to look at himself in the mirror. Switch because of an affinity for switchblades. Dill because he loves dill pickles. Wolfman because he is real hairy. Finally Val the real hero of this story. Nicknamed after Valentino because he is so popular with the ladies. We get a real nice little romance with him and Misty. All ends with a wild killing spree by the Iceman. A cold killer who will once a month break the neck of a puppy or kitten to keep his killing edge. Naturally Val and Misty are the only survivors and go on to live happily ever after.

If there is one complaint is that the author mentions at the beginning this takes place in 1985. Yet he has these anachronisms such as DVDs. The movies Men in Black, Schindler’s List and Seinfeld. Movies and shows made well past 1985. In fact there is nothing in the book that clearly dates this taking place in 1985. Not a big deal but if you want to set something in a historical time you should make it feel like that time period. Otherwise this was an enjoyable book with a unique and fast paced story.

NIGHT STALKERS 9 AVENGING STORM BY DUNCAN LONG

Copyright 1992.

Major Yoshiro Tashida and his garrison of men have been guarding the small island of Kakira for over forty years. They still think that World War II is going on with Japan fighting the allies. Occasionally a small yacht lands and the passengers are tortured and killed. So one day a typhoon brings a cruise ship to the island. Tashida thinks its an American trick and captures the boat and it’s crew and passengers. Then they proceed to torture the passengers by cutting off fingers and pulling out fingernails to get them to confess their real intentions. Oh and by the way the cruise ship was carrying a cargo of illegal AK-47s and shoulder launched surface to air missiles from China.

Into this Captain Jefferson “Oz” Davis Carson and his Night Stalkers are conducting a training mission on Guam. The report of a cruise ship being taken over and the loss of a Coast Guard ship has them go to the rescue. They get the assignment of checking this out. Finding the island has hostile Japanese they must come up with a plan to rescue the hostages and defeat these anachronistic warriors from the past.

The final book in the series is in my opinion the best in the series. Granted it is a bit goofy with having a whole garrison of Japanese from WWII still there is a historical basis in this. There were Japanese soldiers that continued on still believing that the war was going on decades later. So it has some plausible goofiness to it. I love that the Japanese are just so over the top in their evil. The guys just refuse to believe that the war is over and that these civilians are some kind of trick to get them to give up. Plus the author conveniently has them get some modern weapons to even things out.

So the series as a whole was a fun read. Each story was unique with a different setting and locations. The men of the Night Stalkers actually visited all seven continents on the planet. Some of the villains were your typical ones such as Russians, Chinese, Libyans and terrorists. They also had some more unconventional ones like an old Japanese bacteria from WWII or fanatical Japanese solders from WWII. Every story was a different unique experience and that counts for a lot with me.