The Tin Man:
Amazon.com:
Patrick McLanahan, a sometime secret agent for the military and an associate of a high-tech company that manufactures weapons for the armed forces, is the hero of Dale Brown's fast-paced thriller The Tin Man. When McLanahan's kid brother, a rookie cop in Sacramento, is severely injured by a gang of international terrorists, McLanahan decides to take justice into his own hands and shut down their operation. In order to do so, McLanahan must figure out who these heavily-armed thugs are and track them down. He and the owner of the high-tech company develop a powerful weapon to help him accomplish that task--a bulletproof suit equipped with rocket thrusters that makes McLanahan a formidable fighting machine. McLanahan soon comes to be known as the tin man.

Meanwhile, the criminal mastermind Gregory Townsend and his cohorts in the Aryan Brigade wreak havoc in California. They stage a violent armed robbery and try to wrest control of the booming trade in illegal drugs from neo-Nazi biker gangs. Townsend tells a new recruit that he and his men plan to become "the Microsoft of the methamphetamine trade"--but it seems likely that his goal is even larger and more sinister than that. This book should appeal to fans of Ian Fleming's James Bond thrillers. Like Bond, McLanahan gets to use a lot of cleverly-designed high-tech gadgets to extract himself from sticky situations. The Tin Man is packed with skillfully crafted action scenes. It's a pretty good yarn. --Jill Marquis

Fatal Terrain:
From Booklist , 06/01/97:
The Old Dog (an airplane, as Brown regulars know) learns yet more new tricks in Brown's latest technothriller. The EB-52 Megafortresses (improved descendants of the Old Dog) are about to be scrapped, the rest of the U.S. heavy bomber force radically downsized. Then the Chinese seriously try to conquer Taiwan, and President Martindale wants to defend it equally seriously, despite U.S. military weakness, interservice rivalry, and political opposition. Led by Brad Elliott and Patrick McLanahan, the reunited Old Dog crew flies one official mission against the Chinese--and then is faced with arrest for exceeding orders. The next mission--unofficial--becomes justly compared with the exploits of the Flying Tigers of World War II and precipitates a decisive U.S. bomber counteroffensive that defeats the Chinese. Longer on well-handled action and hardware than on characterization (virtually all the navy personnel in it are caricatures), the yarn is another consistent page-turner from Brown, anyway, and won't disappoint his numerous readers. Copyright© 1997, American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews , 05/01/97:
Retired USAF Colonel Patrick McLanahan and his band of irregulars help turn the tide when the People's Republic of China makes war on its lost province of Taiwan, in another high adventure from past master Brown (Shadows of Steel, 1996, etc.). On the eve of Hong Kong's return to China, the nationalists on Taiwan unexpectedly announce their complete independence from the mainland and are immediately recognized by Kevin Martindale, the US President. Taipei's declaration enrages Beijing's hardline Communists, and the Red regime dispatches a carrier force to patrol the Formosa Straits. A heavily armed EB-52 Megafortress on a test flight with a civilian crew under McLanahan's command becomes involved in the resultant confrontation. Initially, the American bomber (extensively modified by McLanahan's employer to carry advanced weaponry) tips the balance, but China's vessels launch nuclear-tipped missiles that wipe out the nationalist warships. On the home front, political adversaries in Congress and business interests (concerned about their commercial stakes in China) put intense pressure on Martindale to let Taiwan go by the boards; the turf-conscious American military also presses the White House to take the McLanahan crew (over which they have minimal control) out of the increasingly deadly game. But under the crafty direction of Admiral Sun Ji Guoming (an ardent patriot bent on returning Taiwan to the mainland fold), hostilities escalate and US forces sustain severe losses. Ordered to stand down in the wake of a tragic mistake, McLanahan's experimental aircraft escapes to Guam (before that island is obliterated by China's missiles) and fights on the side of the nationalists in a climactic battle that effectively finishes off Sun's vaulting ambitions. Nobody, in detailing the lethal excitements of high-tech aerial combat in at least plausible geopolitical contexts, does it better than Brown. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Shadows of Steel:
Thrillers Editor's Recommended Book, 05/01/97:
Death, destruction, and military initials once again fill the air as Dale Brown brings together the surviving members of the crew from his Flight of the Old Dog for his latest adventure. Another Gulf War has begun, this time with Iran, a U.S. vessel has been sunk in the Persian Gulf, America's might has been (once again) crippled by short-sighted military budget cuts, and the only hope is a surgical strike by a secret weapon called Future Flight. Since our old pal Col. Patrick McLanahan of the Old Dog is in charge, how can it miss? As Brown points out, this story takes place in time between his Day of the Cheetah and Hammerheads, both of which are also available in paperback. --This text refers to the mass market (reprint) edition of this title.

From Booklist , 06/01/96:
The high-flying Captain Brown returns in his ninth technothriller, which once again features Patrick McLanahan. This time, McLanahan and his cronies are working to rescue a U.S. spy ship crew from some particularly thuggish Iranians and also keeping an Iranian aircraft carrier (acquired from the former-Soviet-armaments yard sale, so to speak) from catastrophically destabilizing the Persian Gulf region. They have available to them the resources of the CIA, a B-2 bomber (clearly one of Brown's favorite birds), and some lengthily described and ingenious weaponry--for instance, cluster bombs that dispense an acid sludge that dissolves key components of enemy aircraft. The action is fast (despite a slight surplus of subplots); characterization is subordinate to the many excellent flying scenes; and altogether, the yarn is more of what Brown has done before and most likely will continue doing, to his profit and the satisfaction of technothriller fans. Copyright© 1996, American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews , 05/15/96:
Gulf War II, albeit without the Coalition and with latter-day Persia as the foe, in this red-meat technothriller from old pro Brown (Storming Heaven, 1994, etc.). Three years short of a new millennium, Iran is rattling space- age sabers in an effort to gain dominion over the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point in the world's oil-supply line. At odds both with Arab neighbors allied to the US and with the Great Satan itself, the Islamic republic is armed, dangerous, and under the military command of a rash ultranationalist: General Hesarak al-Kan Buzhazi. Hostilities begin when Iran sinks an American spy vessel. In assessing response options, the new US president is all too aware that budget cuts and ill-advised peacekeeping missions have greatly weakened America's armed forces. Accordingly, the Chief Executive calls in the Intelligence Support Agency, a supersecret arm of the CIA. With a blank check from the White House, ISA quickly goes operational with a B-2A Stealth bomber. Under the expert guidance of Patrick McLanahan (an ex-USAF weapons officer), the all but undetectable aircraft and its on-board array of ordnance and electronic countermeasures raise merry (if deniable) hell with the Mideastern theocracy's defenses. Although down, Iran (which has concluded a mutual-assistance pact with Red China) is not out, and Buzhazi's air arm nearly figures out a way to shoot the lone shadow of steel from the sky. The B-2A's can-do crew rises to the occasion, however, and Tehran's officer corps pays a stiff price for its extremism. While the Yanks believe themselves clear victors at the close, there's reason to believe they may have to take on the PRC and its nukes in the next round. State-of-the-art action in the air, on land, and at sea from a master of the future-shock game. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Chains of Command:
From Kirkus Reviews , 05/01/93:
Eastern Europe erupts in war as the Russians rush to the aid of their compatriots in Moldova, happily trampling Ukraine in the process. As usual, Air Force veteran Brown (Night of the Hawk, 1992, etc.) gives all the good parts to the pilots. They never get mentioned by name, but America's fast-food swilling, loose-talking, draft-dodging President and his control-freak, borderline-dominatrix, unelected-tsarina, anti-military, knee-jerk liberal wife are the real villains in this near-future military technothriller. Their rush to de-fund the troops--plus their reliance on bull sessions to solve the world's arguments--nearly undoes the nice new world order left by George Bush. They're just not prepared for the brutality of a retro-rigid Russia where old-line Stalinist Vitaly Velichko has usurped Boris Yeltsin's seat and loosed the dogs of war on the former Soviet republics of Moldova and Ukraine. The guy simply does not play fair--he uses nukes without having a meeting to get in touch with the world's feelings. It's up to America's new downsized Air Force to come to the aid of Ukraine, where the planes are all Soviet antiques but the pilots are all heart. American heroes include Robert Redford look-alike Darren Mace, who was supposed to but didn't drop a nuke on Saddam Hussein, and superpilotess- businesswoman Rebecca Furness, a victim of the First Lady's ruthless reductions in force. The Ukrainian hero is Pavlo Tychina, a first-rate flyer out for some serious revenge after his fianc‚e falls victim to the Russian neutron bomb. The action is, as you expect from Brown, great. But the surprisingly violent Clinton-bashing--while amusing--will probably not make a lot of new friends for the genre. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.