A pretty weak effort when all was said and done. Started out well, with China flexing its muscles in the South China Sea, which it claims as sovereign territory from many centuries ago. The military leadership asserts itself, using its newfound weapons on U.S. and local foes. Meanwhile, the U.S. has little military strength left, and has to rely on Patrick McLanahan's refurbished B1 bombers through private contracting. Too much technobabble, and too long. I hope #19 is better. ( )

Geopolitical plot and find the military hardware descriptions interesting--China attempts to exert it's hegemony over the South China Sea....exaggerated as it was. Bradley McLanahan (Patrick's son) is featured as a large part of the story. Once again, the author fell short on the C2 relations. Detailed equipment descriptions abound. This was #18--off to #19. ( )

Tiger's Claw is the 18th entry in the McLanahan series, after wavering a little earlier in the series it seems that the story line is picking back up in action and realism. This time it's a belligerent China attempting to claim the South China Sea & Spratley Islands as their own. (an exaggerated version of what they are doing right now in the real world...)

It's an entertaining read, Bradley McLanahan (Patrick's son) is featured as a large part of the story once again as he was in A Time For Patriots, further building his characters development, making him more a part of the story and series than a side note.

Once again however, as I found with A Time For Patriots, there is a long detailed build up of events leading to what could have been a fantastic climax, yet it's skimmed and resolved in a mere 30 pages leaving you feeling a bit ripped off. Had the book been 20% longer with the finale written in the same level of detail as the first 370 pages it would have been a 5 star read. You get the feeling the publisher has vetoed the 500-700 page manuscripts that the prior books had and said cut it down to 400 as that's what buyers want now - a quick read as opposed to a detailed one.

It's a problem I see in many books of late, some examples are even worse such as popular authors like James Patterson where every fourth or fifth page is a new 'Chapter' with a title and only half a page of text. Then on the other pages the text is double spaced, large print so a 300 page book is really only ~150 pages which makes it seem like such an easy read giving people a feeling of accomplishment and making them feel good that they've finished a 'long' book, when in reality there's not a lot of content there.

Well that went off on a tangent - Overall, good book, ending could have been better. ( )

have ebook version