Dale Brown
William Morrow / Harper
Collins
September 4, 2012 / ISBN 9780061990014
Thriller/mystery/military
Amazon
Reviewed
by Elise Cooper
Dale Brown’s
latest book, Tiger’s Claw, proves once again that
he is able to bring to life a thrilling and dramatic story that
could be in the headlines in the near future. Currently China is
in a position to challenge America militarily, economically, and
politically. After reading Tiger’s Claw people might understand
how the Chinese-American rivalry will play out.
The plot starts out with a powerful China and a US weakened by an
economic downfall. After China launches its first successful test
of its anti-ship ballistic missile the US President, Kenneth Phoenix,
fears America will lose its naval supremacy. Because America is
recovering from a massive recession and has no funds to compete
with China’s advancing technology the President enlists the
support of retired US Air Force Lt General Patrick McLanahan. His
idea is to have the US refurbish old but potent long-range bombers
that will be able to push back against Chinese aggression. After
being given the green light he leads a force to challenge the Chinese
threat head-on.
Dale Brown stated that he wanted to alert his readers by creating
a doomsday scenario, especially since sequestration appears to be
going forward. Sequestration is the trillion-dollar budget cuts
mandated by the Budget Control Act, passed by Congress last year.
As of January 1st, 2013, half of those cuts must come from defense,
$500 billion over a period of ten years. Brown stated, “I
decided to paint a picture where China gets strong enough, rich
enough, and bold enough to enforce their historical claims of the
South China Sea. China is very quickly building up its military.
They need a strong navy to protect their export lives.”
This book is about outsourcing America’s defense to private
contractors. Since Brown was a USAF navigator in the B-52G Stratofortress
bomber and a radar navigator in the FB-111A supersonic bomber he
definitely knows about how long-range bombers work. He uses his
past knowledge to show the need for long-range bombers because of
China’s distance and their 100 million soldiers.
In one of his past books, Plan
of Attack, he created an American Holocaust, having Russia
wipe out two-thirds of America’s nuclear capability, leaving
only submarine cruise missiles. His books previous to Tiger’s
Claw are about a militarized space, but because of the real-life
budget cuts Brown had to create a universe that “adapted to
the real world. Thus, I came up with a story about outsourcing American
fighters. I got the idea from viewing the Boneyard at the Davis-Monthan
Air Force Base. B-1 bombers were just sitting out there. I had the
idea to dust off these airplanes and re-build them with modern systems
capable of flying long range.”
As with all his books the military hardware and technology have
been the main characters to support the plot. He noted, “The
characters live to support the gadgets. After twenty-five years
of doing this I decided that character development must be secondary
to the plot.”
Tiger’s Claw is a very insightful and interesting
book. Readers will be able to gain an understanding on where the
next danger could be for America’s military. It has an interesting
and fast paced plot that is very realistic.
|