Red Sky at Morning
Unsuspecting readers are guaranteed sleepless nights as Garrison (Fire and Ice) out-Clancys the competition, tracking a driven Chinese admiral who leads a successful submarine invasion of Manhattan in the middle of a business day at the height of Fleet Week. Admiral Tang Li has slipped his diesel submarine force into the Hudson River and ventures into the Atlantic to torpedo a just-departed passenger liner to lure the visiting warships out of New York harbor. The invasion is intended to distract the U.S. from China's planned attack on Taiwan--but the obsessed Tang Li has more complex motives. Tugboat captain Ken Hughes is cruising the harbor with new love Kate Ross when Ken's tug is commandeered by Li's crew. Kate escapes in an inflatable raft, but Li makes the tug his command post, forcing Ken to help direct the subs. When Kate and Ken's buddy, TV reporter Jose Chin, tries to contact Mayor Rudolph Mincarelli (read Giuliani to a tee), Mincarelli's press secretary (and rumored lover), Renata Bradley, cuts them off. She is troubled enough, however, to hustle herself and the mayor out of Gracie Mansion. Meanwhile, 100 subs surface all around Manhattan, and commandos swarm ashore, shooting citizens, wiping out police stations and leveling One Police Plaza as they battle their way to City Hall and the World Trade Center. Garrison follows the battle through the travails of a wide ethnic mix of New York heroes, and the action hurtles along at bazooka blast speed, revealing the city and the harbor as Manhattan residents have never seen it before. National reaction and presidential response is understated and the cinematic confrontation between the main protagonists is a bit anticlimactic, but no matter: the blur of turning pages will keep readers engrossed. (Mar.)Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.