Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Monday, Oct. 13, 2003

Check out the “Lord” part for starters. Bell’s bigger than life protagonist is a bona-fide member of the British House of Lords. Bond, of course, was a mere citizen of the realm – not even a back bencher in the House of Commons.

Fleming’s Bond would, according to strict formula, check in with “Q” periodically to get issued the latest ingenious and often lethal cars, boats, jet packs, pens, watches, etc. Bell’s Lord Hawk is one of the world’s wealthiest men and comes -- on his own ticket -- better equipped than the evil Specter and Thrush combined on their best day.

Hawke’s personal yacht, “Blackhawke,” is a veritable dreadnaught, luxurious to the extreme yet quipped with a stern end that unsnaps like the trunk on an Aston Martin to expose a potpourri of exotic speedboats and planes – all the better to pursue and blast the bad guys of the world.

For comic relief there is Hawke’s garrulous parrot, who sustains himself on expensive tins of beluga caviar.

Like Bond, Lord Hawke holds the title and rank of commander in the navy. But in Hawk’s case the commission is in the U.S. Navy rather the Royal Navy. Not to be outdone by James, however, Alex is a unique spy, who thanks to his dual citizenship works both for the U.S. and the island country of his hideously murdered patrician parents.

Furthermore, Alex is a crack jet fighter pilot, having screamed F-14 Tomcats through the hostile skies over Iraq during the Gulf War. Along the way he also managed to graduate from the prestigious British Special Boat Teams school, a rite of masculine military passage that reputedly makes U.S. SEAL training look like so much rich kid’s day camp.

But the true measure of a spy hero has to be the dangerousness of his missions and whether there is sufficient opportunity to save the world and preserve civilization against an extreme enemy.

Fleming’s Dr. No and Goldfinger are left in the dust as Bell’s hero confronts a triumvirate of evil in the form of three maniacal and soulless brothers, who have moved up from the slimy drug cartel world to rapid ascendancy in the military power elite of Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

The mischievous trio is fed up with Fidel’s pandering to the imperialistic Norte Americanos – like letting the U.S. maintain its big Guantanamo Bay base on the communist island. It’s time to toss old el Commandante out on his hirsute ear.

Super Power

Enter some rag-tag Russkies all anxious to sell to the brothers a super-secret bat-shaped nuke sub that will overnight turn the dinky Cuba into a superpower to be reckoned with. Upping the ante, the brothers also want to let loose a doomsday bio-bug in the sprawling Gitmo base -- wiping out every jarhead, woman and child.

If all this sounds a little tongue-in-cheek and lots of fun, that’s exactly what Bell’s entree novel delivers in spades. Hawke is unadulterated fun and a happy read. It’s all there: romance, revenge, death, dismemberment…

In the romance department, the worldly Lord Hawke can’t fritter away his time with a curvy island girl. Hawke, instead, makes sparks with none other than the beauteous American Secretary of State, an exotic number he playfully calls Conch, like the sea shell creature.

Hawke shuttles from the Caribbean where he stalks the Russkies and their sleek sub to Washington, D.C. where he debriefs Conch, who is, of course, nuts about but unrequited as regards to her rugged spy-man.

Meanwhile, the love of Hawk’s pretty-much-so-far lonely and adrift life is stowed away on his yacht where she coyly tugs on his hard-boiled heart strings. Of course, the bad guys wind up kidnapping true love – all the better for rescuing in the finale.

As for the other R word, revenge, there is the matter of the brutal murder years before of Hawke’s parents. The evil brothers are up to their pirate necks in that infamy as well, and the issue becomes if Hawke’s call of duty, honor and the American way can snuff out his blood lust.

For the action junkie, there are plenty of fire-fights, stinger missile attacks and even a torpedo or two – all tightly wrapped in a good old fashion escapist read.

Despite the distraction of cliché, one cares about the creatures that make the book go. For instance, there’s this lush of a Gitmo sailor, who unwittingly gets himself involved in the plot to snuff his fellows on the base. There is plenty of suspense as our inebriate stumbles his way along in the nefarious plot to unleash the Apocalypse germ.

Is the booze-crazed and treasonous sailor successful? Does the Russkie Nuke get unleashed against the Yankee dogs? Is Fidel overthrown like a latter-day Batista?

All right, in all fairness, that’s like asking if Goldfinger’s nuclear blast taints the gold reserve at Ft. Knox. Bond and Hawke will always come out winners. The reader of Hawke will also come out a winner.

“The name’s Hawke, Alex Hawke.”

Cool stuff.

Editor's note:
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