Nightstalker

A highly original premise--the first mission of the B-2 Stealth bomber--is shot down by hard-to-credit plot elements in this debut retro-techno- thriller. The time is 1984. A new Stealth ``Black Ghost'' fighter, adjunct ?? to the B-2, has been flying secret test missions over Soviet bases near Alaska, in violation of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. spy-plane agreements negotiated after the Francis Gary Powers U-2 incident a quarter-century earlier. But this time the ``invisible'' Ghost has drawn multiple radar probes and been downed in Soviet territorysince if it's `downed,' it's no longer `over' land? . The radar attack prompts U.S. fears that the Soviets have developed their own version of the Strategic Defense Initiative--fears confirmed when a Soviet pilot familiar with the project conveniently defects. In response, the U.S. sends a B-2 prototype, the Nightstalker, to destroy the U.S.S.R.'s master radar-control center near Moscow. Its pilot, Col. Duke James, and his crew are guided by the defector, Capt. Gregori Koiser, who believes that destroying the radar will encourage reform in the U.S.S.R. by demonstrating the government's vulnerability. Rizzi's narrative suffers because he fails to establish the Soviet radar as a threat the U.S. would risk general war to destroy. But he writes terrific action scenes (though they lose their impact through repetition) and the novel succeeds as a stimulating exercise in history as it might have been. words missing in last sentence? no, it's ok (May)