Force Recon 1

In this first installment of a new series of military adventures, a sharp-witted Marine captain, Jack Swayne, leads a special unit--Team Midnight--to rescue the commandant of the Marine Corps from a group of Canadian terrorists operating on U.S. soil. After the team is called back from an operation in Cuba, their mission begins with a disastrous landing in a Montana blizzard. Tracking the terrorists north, they fight injury and hostile militias--and even regiments of their own military; apparently, a conspiracy is afoot. A control freak, Swayne is forced to improvise through one episode after another, discovering that even his support in Washington is impossible to trust. The three other members of his team are familiar types: Friel is a former street tough turned sure-shot; Potts, a gritty and dependable Southerner; and Night Runner, a Native American who relies on supernatural senses when technology fails him. Although Smith (Beastmaker) can be wordy (on parachuting: ""while floating in the air, the agenda was not your own, but that of the arbitrary forces of nature"") and sometimes interrupts the tension of action sequences to clarify matters, his bloody kills and high-tech novelties will appeal to fans of the genre. (Aug.)