Ghost (Ghost Series #1) » (BOOK & CD)

A veteran of the 82nd Airborne, he brings first-hand knowledge of military operations to his fiction. In addition to his nationally best-selling techno-thriller novels about Mike Harmon, his novels for Baen include the novels in the New York Times best-selling Posleen War series (A Hymn Before Battle, Gust Front, When the Devil Dances, and Hell¿s Faire), the Council War series (There Will be Dragons, Emerald Sea, Against the Tide, and East of the Sun, West of the Moon), the novel Into the Looking Glass, four collaborations with fellow New York Times bestselling author David Weber (March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars and We Few) and three collaborative spinoffs from the Posleen series: Hero (with Michael Z. Williamson), Watch on the Rhine (with Tom Kratman) and the New York Times best seller Cally¿s War (with Julie Cochrane).

Former SEAL Michael Harmon, Team Name "Ghost", retired for service injuries, is not enjoying college life. But things are about to change, if not for the better. When he sees a kidnapping a series of, at the time logical, decisions leave him shot to ribbons and battling a battalion of Syrian commandos with only the help of three naked co-eds who answer to the names ¿Bambi,¿ ¿Thumper¿ and ¿Cotton Tail.¿ A fast-paced, highly-sexual, military-action thriller that ranges from a poison factory in the Mideast to the Florida Keys to Siberia, the novel will keep you guessing what twisted fate will bring next for the man once known as . . . Ghost. Keep an eye on him or . . . poof, he'll be gone.

Publishers Weekly

Fans of Ringo's military SF epics (Into the Looking Glass) may at first think Mike Harmon, the hero of this unusual novel, is cut from the same cloth as Mike O'Neal from the Posleen War series (Watch on the Rhine, etc.). Like O'Neal, Harmon is a former Navy SEAL trying to adjust to civilian life who gets sucked back into action by circumstances, in particular by his witnessing the kidnaping of a college coed by jihadists. It becomes clear, though, that Harmon has a darker side, to which, by late in the book, as illustrated by a shocking scene in a Bosnian brothel, Harmon has almost completely surrendered. More techno-thriller than SF, this is a picaresque tale about a modern Barry Lyndon who resists, with equivocal results, baser instincts brought out by extreme stress. It's refreshing to find a successful popular writer who's not afraid to try something different, and the adventurous reader will find Ringo's latest insightful, exciting and outrageously funny. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.