I read this book on the recommendation of an old college roommate. My friend Rick really likes Ted Bell. Rick and I both like Clive Cussler and the Dirk Pitt series so I thought I would give 'Hawke' a try.I don't think I will be reading any more Hawke books. Frankly, the writing is almost amateurish. Bell is clearly trying to create a Pitt-like character. Hawke and Pitt have similar, nay, almost identical backgrounds(ex-military men, pilots, dashing good looks, scions of prominent families, loyal sidekicks, beautiful women dropping at their feet). Hawke is almost a caricature of an English nobleman (Lord Hawke) with his faithful butler, Pelham, and his antiquated mode of speaking (old thing, jolly good, I say, etc.) It's as it Bell is trying to one-up Cussler with Hawke.Bell's plotting is adequate but he fails to capture the historical mystery aspect that Cussler does so well. With Cussler's books you have an ancient or old maritime wreck that figures prominently and dovetails neatly with the contemporary threat. In 'Hawke', Bell slaps together a contemporary threat and then forces a connection with an old mystery. In this case, the villain is the descendant of a 17th century Spanish pirate whose treasure was stolen by a 17th century English pirate. I'll give you three guesses as to who the great-great-great-great-great grandson of that English pirate is. And the first two guesses don't count.All of this could be somewhat forgiven, and perhaps have earned the book an extra star or two had it not been for the unbelievability of the main character and the rife factual errors. In the case of Hawke, he grows up and attends the British version of our Naval Academy (Dartmouth) and then becomes a naval aviator. First he flies Harrier jump jets and then graduates to fighters (an error since Harriers are fighters and attack aircraft). Bell relates how during the first Gulf War Hawke flew Tomcats. Tomcats are F-14s. F-14s are carrier-based interceptor/fighters. Only two nations have ever operated the F-14: the United States and the Shah's Iran.Still let's put that error aside for the moment (although it's but one example of what I mean). Let's also put aside the rarity of a pilot transitioning from one aircraft to another (it happens but not that often) and we have the fact that, per Bell, after mastering two high performance aircraft, Hawke did a tour with SBS (Special Boat Squadron, the British equivalent of the US Navy SEALs).We now catch up to Hawke and he is a billionaire business mogul who freelances by doing wet-work and commando-style anti-terrorism and espionage missions for the US and UK. He's 37 years old.The timeline is simply impossible. Not unlikely. Not improbable. Impossible. No mention is made of how he acquired his vast fortune in approximately five years. It can't be family money. His family is supposed to be well-off, but he is the son and grandson of war heroes who both became intelligence officers after their military careers were over.Oh, and his ex- (whose age is unspecified but she's another ravishing beauty) is the new US Secretary of State.Again, I might have even (emphasis on 'might') overlooked this impossible protagonist had it not been for the numerous factual errors. This book was published in 2003 and these kinds of errors are simply unforgivable in this day and age of instant access to Google and Wikipedia. And how all these errors got past editors and fact checkers is the real question.I've already mentioned the Tomcat. Here are a couple of others:- Hawke meets with two Russian arms dealers, looking to buy a nuclear missile submarine. He tells them he wants to buy a boomer (missile sub), an Akula. Akulas are fast-attack submarines. This is like saying, I want to buy a big rig, a Mustang. Bell then doubles down on the error by referring to an Akula Typhoon. This is like saying you want a Mack Testarossa. It's incomprehensible.- a character makes an analogy by referring to Axl Rose's Fender Stratocaster. First, Axl doesn't play guitar in Guns 'n Roses; Slash does. And not content to make just the one error, he again doubles down because Slash plays Gibson Les Pauls not Fender Strats.- in the finale Bell has American F/A-18 attack aircraft attacking ground targets with Aim (not AIM) - 9 Sidewinder missiles. Aim means nothing. AIM stands for Advanced Intermediate Range Missile. It *is* a Sidewinder but it is a heat-seeking air-to-air missile and cannot be used to attack ground targets. For that you would use an AGM (Air-to-Ground Missile) - 65 Maverick.This has been a long review but I think I have amply demonstrated that this is not a franchise or author worth your time. Reader beware!
Ted Bell's Hawke wants to be a big, fun adventure in the Bondian tradition but it ends up being a thoroughly mediocre slog, nowhere near as fun or epic as it seems to think it is. Alexander Hawke is a wealthy English lord who regularly goes on grandiose spy adventures for the British and American governments. His latest mission is to discover who is in possession of a Russian super-sub capable of, apparently, single-handedly decimating the entire U.S. Navy. A coup d'état in Cuba, an down-and-out American naval officer, a decades-old treasure map and a tragedy from Hawke's past all figure in to the story. Spoilers...There are lots of problems with Hawke, but I think first and foremost is the plotting. Hawke feels a lot slower than it should, and a big part of why is that Bell doesn't seem to understand pacing very well. There are scenes that should be done in one chapter that are spread out over several because Bell feels the need to split them up with other goings on. I understand the impetus to spend a certain amount of time with everyone, but Bell does it in such a way that it breaks the momentum and makes certain scenes drag. Castro's kidnapping, for example, goes on forever. Additionally, Alex Hawke does very little to move the plot forward. For the entire middle section of the book he's mostly relaxing with Vicky. There's no spying or anything going on, just tanning, swimming and talking about feelings (although I did enjoy the sex on the beach). It's his friends and employees who are doing all the investigating. It makes it hard to see Hawke as the swashbuckling hero he's intended to be when he allows so many swashes to go unbuckled. Then there's the scope of the story, which feels small when it should be epic. Cuba has been taken over by its military leaders! A sci-fi submarine is waiting to destroy any U.S. fleet that comes near it! A biological agent has been hidden in Guantanamo by a turncoat officer! This should be huge! But it's not. The coup d'état takes minutes to implement and the effects are never really felt. The submarine unleashes its awesome might but once, and it destroys... a fishing boat. The attack on Gitmo, while a bit more successful, is marred by the idiotic -- and flat-out annoying -- characterization of Gomer. The sense of danger never quite feels real, and as a result the adventure is much less fun. Also infuriating is the writing style. Ted Bell just isn't that great a prose writer. He repeats words very often in close proximity to each other (a bugaboo of mine). He isn't very adept at describing anything exciting, which makes the action scenes dull. But worst of all is his dialogue. He wants Hawke to be witty like James Bond, but he doesn't know how to write wit so everything Hakwe says ends up being either corny or just flat. The same holds true for the other characters, but Hawke gets most of what Bell seems to think are the best lines, so he comes out the most scathed. Now, I didn't hate the book. I liked the air of fun it created, even if it couldn't really deliver on it. The idea of Hawke as a hero in the mold of James Bond or Indiana Jones is very appealing. Throughout the book, Bell has different characters reflect on past Alex Hawke adventures and that works really well in creating this adventure-serial world. I also really liked some of the supporting characters, particularly Vicky and Stokely, with Conch following close behind them. I preferred them greatly to the rather dull Congreve and Ross (Bell seems to do better with American characters than Brits; seeing as he's American himself, that isn't overly surprising in hindsight, though it's a bit problematic since he decided to make the hero of his books an Englishman). I also really liked Rodrigo, a villain very much in the Ian Fleming tradition. Unfortunately, not only is he just a henchman (serving much less-interesting masters) but he is barely present. Luckily the ending seems to suggest he'll show up again down the road.And I think I will investigate that road further. I was far less than impressed with this book, but I've read that the writing gets much better as the series goes on, so I'm willing to give it another chance. There is a lot of potential in the setup, but Bell really needs to up his game from here on out.
What do You think about Hawke (2006)?
This is the first book of a series of adventures starring Alexander Hawke. An aristocratic, billionaire, ex-special forces type secret agent. Sounds a bit James Bond like, well it is. Having read book #4 some time ago I was interested to read this one to get all the background on Alex and the other main characters. This book had what I was looking for, but in some ways too much. There was a lot of background stuffed into this book and that made it seem overlong. Many times the story jumped off at a tangent, or into a flashback just when things were heating up. The story itself was decent but a couple of the plot devices seemed unbelievable to me. A 'V' shaped submarine made from two hulls joined at an angle??? Doesn't sound at all feasible. A couple of predictable moments too but if put it into the same category as James Bond or a Clive Cussler novel it's comparable. Decent pacing in that it wasn't slam bam, in your face, action packed the whole way through.Not bad and a good light hearted read.
—AndrewP
Book1 in the Alexander Hawke series“Hawke”, is a twenty first century pirate tale which takes place on the Caribbean Seas near the island of Cuba. This action adventure thriller introduces its main character, Alexander Hawke, as a rich English aristocrat Spy working for both the UK and US governments. The main emphasis throughout is based on intense action scenes and the showdown is a classic case of revenge in over drive.Soon into the story we have a strong sense of déjà vu, scenes that mirror strongly those of Ian Fleming`s James Bond are frequent. The book is very predictable, it is a rip-roaring tale with plenty of stereotype clichés, unbelievable characters, and exotic machinery and out of this world action sequences. This fast- paced adventure was quite exciting and held my attention till the very last page. The stage is set with seven year old Alex witnessing the gruesome murder of his parents by pirates while on a sailing trip in the Caribbean. We are then fast-forwarded thirty years and Alex is send back to the Caribbean on a covert operation to find a stealth submarine armed with all the latest gadgets and believed to be in the hands of unstable militants planning a coup d’état on the Cuban government and a threat to U.S. interest in the area….. It is a race against time...This novel gives you quite a wild ride into the world of fiction.
—Toni Osborne
Where to begin. I foolishly picked up the whole book after reading the kindle sample. It was 50% tripe, 25% fun, 20% interesting and 5% wrong.To begin, Alex Hawke (Lord Alex, my apologies) is a British Aristocrat who is also able to fly f-14 Tomcats off Royal Navy ships, was a member of the navy version of the SAS, is an accomplished pilot and is also a multi millionaire with a ship (Blackhawke of course) which holds a flying boat that looks like a Spitfire (Kittyhawke naturally) and a speed boat that can outrun almost everything (Nighthawke). He also has a parrot named Sniper that warns him of anything bad happening and a treasure map from his ancient ancestor, the notorious pirate Blackhawke. The action when it happened was not terrible, what was bad though was the characters. The token black man, Stokely, actually talked as such. "You done gone goofed now boy". This was one of many. The love interest was a doctor and had long luscious locks, hell, even the DOCTOR on Blackhawke (the boat not the pirate), a minor role, was the identical twin of the reigning Miss Denmark.It was silly, it was wrong (a Glock pistol does not have a safety latch to toy with, and Sidewinder missiles cannot attack ground targets as they are air-to-air missiles), it was overly oriented toward action which dragged in the middle of the book, it was cheesy as all hell and yet, somehow, stupidly, it worked.Although if I read a book where someone says "suh" instead of sir one more time...
—Nick
