Chopper Ops 1

Rookie CIA Agent Gene Smitz has been assigned the mission of recovering the Arc Light 4 (a spy plane that supposedly went down in Saudi Arabia almost a decade before) and freeing its original crew of 13, who are believed to still be held hostage in a fortress outside of Baghdad. After an intensive training session on a secret island in the Florida Keys, Smitz's ad hoc interservice military unit sets out for combat in the Middle East, armed in their high-tech choppers. The troops fight to take down the fortress of a reclusive, 400-pound billionaire named Zim, who now has the spy plane, but just when their tour of duty seems imminently victorious, something goes disastrously wrong. Maloney's (author of the Wingman series) technical descriptions of aircraft and weaponry and fluent militaristic terminology are authentic, but they are not enough to compensate for his underdeveloped characters, who are clearly secondary to the action. (Oct.)