Red Phoenix » (Unabridged)

Larry Bond is the author of numerous New York Times bestselling thrillers, including Cold Choices, Cauldron, and The Enemy Within. He previously worked with Jim DeFelice on the Larry Bond’s First Team series. A former naval intelligence officer, warfare analyst, and antisubmarine technology expert, he makes his home in Springfield, Virginia.

From the author who collaborated with Tom Clancy on Red Storm Rising, this is the book that dares to show us the military hardware, global upheavals, and raw combat a second Korean War would unleash. How F-16s would blast across the 38th Parallel. How ultra-modern submarines would vie for the seas. And how two armies would turn the snowfields of Asia red with blood. A thundering geopolitical thriller of vast scope, this is Red Phoenix - and a new standard for military/political suspense fiction.

"A big, big book...A superb storyteller...Larry Bond seems to know everything about warfare, from the grunt in a foxhole to the fighter pilots far above the earth...Red Phoenix is wonderfully entertaining and deserves to be the bestseller it is." - New York Times Book Review

"Gripping...masterfully accurate...Mr. Bond is in complete command." - Baltimore Sun

"Harrowingly real and persuasive." - Newsday

"A direct hit! The techno-thriller has a new ace, and his name is Larry Bond." - Tom Clancy

Publishers Weekly

Bond, Tom Clancy's collaborator on Red Storm Rising , here makes his first--and impressive--independent contribution to the technothriller. ``Red Phoenix'' is the code name for the novel's catalyst: a North Korean invasion of the south. Bond establishes a credible scenario of megalomanic North Korean leadership taking advantage of disruptions caused by ill-advised U.S. economic sanctions against the Seoul government. He then proceeds to ``refight'' the first weeks of the Korean War, this time with things done right, resulting in a kind of conflict for which U.S. forces are ideally suited: a mid-intensity conventional war for limited objectives. South Korea's government and armed forces prove resolute and efficient. The U.S. President declares a national emergency. The implied contrasts to Vietnam hardly seem accidental. But the nature of the response to the attack combines with the exponential discrepancy between the combatants' military strengths to make the novel's individual episodes more suspenseful than the course of the war as a whole. Bond's writing is strongest at the tactical and operational level. Whether describing infantry combat, air-to-ground attacks or anti-submarine operations, he demonstrates a sure grip on weaponry and military methods. His principal characters--the U.S. commanding general in Korea, an infantry lieutenant and his South Korean counterpart, an F-16 pilot--carry their parts of the story effectively, not least because Bond concentrates on what they do rather than on who they are. 100,000 first printing; major ad/promo; author tour. (June)