Review: Fizzling pyrotechnics in Coonts' 'Hong Kong'

"Hong Kong"
By Stephen Coonts
St. Martin's Press
Fiction
350 pages

In this story: Far-out plot Fighting with mechanical velociraptors RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Adam Dunn
Special to CNN.com

(CNN) -- "Damn Communists!"

This neatly sums up the attitude of "Hong Kong," the eighth novel featuring Naval Intelligence hero Jake Grafton, a man as All-American as Tom Clancy's Jake Ryan. Apart from their devoted wives, their meteoric rises through the Byzantine military intelligence community, and their sudden ability to shake off the lethargy of their desk jobs and spring into action like James Bond stuntmen, the two lead series characters share a common cold war malady: manic anti-Communist xenophobia.

Meanwhile, China, that Communist bastion, offers writers of military technothrillers every opportunity to make a living by serving as the new incarnation of the Evil Empire. Granted, China's behavior over the last half century has done little to discourage such perceptions -- what with armed incursions into the Koreas, Indochina, Tibet, or taking ballistic potshots at Taiwan -- but readers of "Hong Kong" may get the impression that China better hurry up and start World War III before writers like Mr. Coonts are out of a job.

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Excerpt: 'Hong Kong'

Of course, Coonts' job is to create such fictional trouble, and he decides to stage it in Hong Kong -- interestingly, the one point in Southeast Asia where the takeover of one sovereign nation's territory by another occurred bloodlessly.

"China is coming to a crisis. The whole country is tinder, ready to burn," observes Grafton at the onset of his Hong Kong posting, which is ostensibly to rendezvous with the American consul general, Virgil "Tiger" Cole. Cole is Grafton's bombing buddy from the good ol' Vietnam days, when Commies were Commies, but maybe he can't be trusted. Grafton's mission is to determine whether Cole is in cahoots with a known Chinese revolutionary, Wu Tai Kwong, in a plot to destabilize the region.

The delicacy of Grafton's assignment is the most plausible point in "Hong Kong"'s far-out plot: "If representatives of the American government are members of a conspiracy to overthrow the lawful government of China, that could be construed as an act of war." In these days of walking-on-eggshells foreign policy, where loose-cannon dictators can remain in power, Grafton's anxiety is understandable.

The fuse in Coonts' Chinese firecracker is lit when a Japanese-owned bank is deliberately allowed to fail following massive accumulation of bad debts (Holy Asian financial crisis, Batman!), wiping out the savings of thousands of Chinese customers. Predictably, a "group of angry Asians" (fear of disgruntled Chinese hordes resonates throughout "Hong Kong") riots at the bank's doors.

"Predictably," in fact, is a word that can be used frequently to describe "Hong Kong." Predictably, the Chinese government responds to the rioters with excessive force. Predictably, Grafton and other non-Asians -- including Rip Buckingham, son of an Australian newspaper mogul, who is married to Wu Tai Kwong's sister -- express horror at the carnage. And, predictably, the Chinese army is portrayed as cold-blooded: "The thought that ran through the general's head was that the crowd should not have run. It was their fault, really. He certainly hadn't given orders for the soldiers to shoot."

The plot does take a few surprising turns. Sonny Wong, a local gangster, kidnaps Kwong and Grafton's wife in an effort to start a bidding war between Beijing and Washington. Wong is a voice of capitalism, and is actually rather likable. And capitalism will out: Pretty soon Cole and Grafton are going into Rambo mode and leading the fight to free Hong Kong from the Chinese, just like in the old days. Their method is cyberwarfare.

See, Cole is a software millionaire (of course) whose financial gift to the revolution is a platoon of his company's latest toys, the Sgt. York units. The Yorks are saurian battle robots that sound ominously like mechanical velociraptors. These babies have learning-computer brains, night vision, and never miss what they aim at. And if they run out of ammo, why, they just rip enemy troops apart anyway.

"Hong Kong" does make one interesting observation. Wars are no longer fought on open battlefields, but in crowded cities. Casualties are more likely to be civilians than soldiers. And, with the advent of technology like the Yorks, the future is now, meaning that the sci-fi goodies of comic books are real ready for use in grudge matches between governments and gangs alike.

As a novel, however, "Hong Kong" isn't even a good thrill ride. It's full of macho and muscle, but its two-dimensional characters and lack of believability get in its way. There's no point in giving away the ending; you already know what it is.

If you're convinced the Cold War is alive and well and threatening to envelop the West from a launchpad in China, "Hong Kong" may be just the ticket. But if you enjoy a good technothriller or well-told story, you'd be better off journeying elsewhere.

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Stephen Coonts Online
St. Martin's Press

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