The Iron Men
Scott, whose previous novels ( The Expendables ; Charlie Mike ) focused on the Vietnam War, has written a readable but highly contrived thriller that spans the past 40 years in Germany. During the waning days of WW II, a band of battle-weary Luftwaffe paratroopers is tactically retreating on the outskirts of Berlin. Sadistic SS captain Horst Wolker orders his men to execute them as "traitors to the Fatherland." Paratrooper captain Alex Mader pleads with Volker, explaining that his unit is low on ammunition, and moreover, the soldiers are all "Iron Men," recipients of Germany's highest military honor, the Knight's Cross. Unmoved, Volker orders the mass execution to proceed, but Mader and two others are spared when the hum of Soviet tanks prompts the SS to flee. Decades pass; Volker, fittingly, has become the director of Stasi, the East German secret police, and the three surviving Iron Men are still bent on revenge. In 1989, Jake Tallon, a U.S. Army colonel (and former Special Forces hotshot in Vietnam), is assigned to West Berlin; he befriends Mader and assists the Iron Men in their attempt to settle an old score. Though the narrative is slow going in the interval between the wars, the novel's gung-ho characters and exciting climax redeem it from Scott's tendency to rely on coincidence.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.