The Tin Man - Hardcover

Brown, Dale

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 055311106X ISBN 13: 9780553111064

Publisher: Bantam, 1998

Synopsis

In his ten New York Times bestselling novels, Dale Brown pits men and technology against impossible odds, in stories so vivid and authentic you feel you are part of the action. Now the undisputed master of military suspense brings back aerial combat expert Patrick McLanahan--this time at the center of an undeclared war exploding on the streets of America.

Some call him a terrorist. Others call him a vigilante hero. Dressed in a carbon-filament bodysuit that can instantly harden into stronger-than-steel protective armor, a mysterious figure the public has dubbed the Tin Man roams the urban landscape of Sacramento, California, on a search-and-destroy mission. While some want him dead and others want him decorated, only a handful of people know the truth of who he is: Patrick McLanahan, the nation's most heroic aerial warrior, now retired, who for fifteen years risked his life for his country in the U.S. military.

He is a civilian now, engaged in scientific development for a high-tech company specializing in strategic devices for the armed forces--his workplace more the laboratory than the cockpit. But when his rookie cop brother is injured in a shootout following a bank robbery, McLanahan becomes a one-man army. The enemy is within, on the streets of his own country, and he is the avenger. His targets are international terrorist turned drug lord Gregory Townsend and his Aryan Brigade, which are masterminding the violence taking over the city.

Townsend and the Brigade, out to destroy government authority in pursuit of their racist ideology, fear nothing. But there's one thing they haven't counted on.

Wherever he goes McLanahan's swift and violent justice overpowers the enemy--but at a price. Innocent lives are put in jeopardy whenever he appears, because the police lose tactical control. The more he tests the limits of his technological power--and his own courage--the more he is forced to face up to the implications of what he is doing. Has his passion for revenge taken him over the line? Is his personal war part of the solution to the violent crime sweeping the country...or is it part of the problem?

In Patrick McLanahan, a patriot become a renegade, Dale Brown has given us a hero who must ultimately decide between his own ability to single-handedly take on the forces of violence and the power of established laws to secure a peaceful society. Authoritative in its cutting-edge technology and dazzling in its portrayal of life on the streets of America's cities, The Tin Man is a novel of consummate suspense.

About this title

Review:

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

From the Publisher:

Praise for Dale Brown:

*"Brown gives this modern Batman a hard-edged twist and a dose of techno-reality....It's a page-turning start to both Brown and McLanahan."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"The best military adventure writer in the country today."
--Clive Cussler

"Dale Brown is a master at mixing technology and action. He puts readers right into the middle of the action."
--Larry Bond

"Brilliant at fully animating his characters in a few paragraphs."
--San Francisco Chronicle

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 055311106X
• ISBN 13: 9780553111064
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384