Dick Marcinko
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Is Kim Jong-il really a fanatical fan of Dick Marcinko, the Rogue Warrior? Has the terrifying tyrant actually read every one of Marcinko's many New York Times bestsellers?

One thing is certain: the Rogue Warrior wants nothing to do with the brutal despot. When, in Dictator's Ransom, "the loathsome dwarf"--as George W. Bush derided him--invites Marcinko to the Hermit Kingdom, the Rogue Warrior instantly declines...prompting the CIA to RSVP on his behalf. Marcinko is to track down four covert nuclear warheads secreted in the Supreme Leader's palace.

More than just a thriller, Dictator's Ransom is a novel of electrifying energy and wicked wit.

An autobiography of a career naval officer who dropped out of high school, enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and spent his ca reer struggling to win acceptance for special warfare SEAL (sea-air-land) units within the Navy establishment from the late 1950s to the present. Marcinko provides detailed descriptions of the early transformation of underwater demolition teams (UDT) into SEAL units. With interesting vignettes about training and actual missions during the Vietnam War, he gives a close-up view of this specialized and little-known brand of warfare. Marcinko's participation in the Iran hostage rescue attempt in 1980 and the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983 provide a perspective vastly different from the accepted versions of these events. However, the overuse of salty language throughout the book that lends new meaning to the phrase "curse like a sailor" and Marcinko's polemical accounts of his struggles to win acceptance for specialized warfare within the Navy are unfortunate. Not a necessary purchase. Military Book Club main selection.

What is an employee's worst nightmare? Seeing Marcinko's (Rogue Warrior, LJ 2/1/92) latest on the boss's desk next to Wess Roberts's Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun (1986).

The former Navy commando and author of Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior offers a hard-hitting guide to personal success, offering dynamic, aggressive strategies and skills to help readers meet the challenges of business and everyday life. Tour."

As usual, Marcinko's indestructible hero of his Rogue Warrior series is... himself. This time around (his 11th), Marcinko and his ex-military Rogue Warriors, operating as a private security company, are pulling off very successful attack exercises on transportation and energy targets in the U.S. While Marcinko and his pals are embarrassing the Department of Homeland Security (and offering hilariously deadpan, expletive-filled assessments of the government's performance), someone is sending Marcinko deadly messages, with more in mind than a public relations kerfuffle. As Marcinko investigates the puzzling clues, a cloudy picture emerges of Bosnian Muslim terrorists, smuggling, a missing French intelligence agent, strange connections to the Vietnam War and a very real threat of another major terrorist attack on U.S. soil. The story rushes from one pile of dead bodies to the next and ends with an exciting showdown at the Las Vegas Sands. While the action is tight (and spiked with cool super-spook technology), the villains' motives and malice are weak and unconvincing. Marcinko's highly profane first person remains as funny and charming as ever, though, and fans won't be disappointed.

Literature imitates steak tartare in these latest adventures (after Rogue Warrior: Green Team) of ex-Navy SEAL Dick Marcinko and his handpicked band of operatives. Here, the author has his fictional alter-ego and his underlings combat domestic terrorism?on an airline and at an oil rig, among other colorful locations. Marcinko the character also has a half-million-dollar bounty put on his head by an evil billionaire. Although the first-person narrative bristles with seemingly authentic military detail, readers are assured that "operational details have been altered so as not to betray current SpecWar techniques." Marcinko is less demure about his politics, taking to task politicians, the international arms trade and sloppy security precautions as he pumps for a highly trained and patriotic standing military. The author is running into some problems keeping the series fresh. The thin plot isn't sufficiently obscured by spilled blood and hand-to-hand fighting tips, and Marcinko's insider's voice, while still cocky, is beginning to explain details covered in earlier volumes. But those who enjoy tough tales about men whose purpose is "to annihilate, destroy, obliterate, kill, maim and terminate" will enjoy chewing on this.

According to Marcinko, following the publication of his bestselling autobiography Rogue Warrior , he was forbidden to reveal any more secrets about SEAL or other defense activities; so he has taken to fiction to continue his story. The novel's cynical, coarse, egotistical, irreverent and bloody hero (also named Dick Marcinko) is involuntarily recalled to his old rank as Navy Captain and ordered to assemble a team of Red Cell SEALs--mavericks in a service known for irregular practices--to stop the sale of American nuclear devices to North Korea and to test the defenses of various military installations. The resulting action boasts high-tech equipment, gory hand-to-hand combat and various forms of mayhem, climaxing in Red Cell's attack on a contraband-filled tanker in the Pacific Ocean. The atmosphere is electric with real weapons and locations, and Marcinko provides copious details of training and planning and accounts of previous missions. The guilty parties here include not only mercenaries of various countries but also high ranking corrupt American politicians; paranoid military conspiracy buffs will find plenty to worry about here. A surefire bet for wannabe soldiers of fortune, this is also a frighteningly plausible scenario of political and military power gone astray.

Marcinko and DeFelice deliver another high-octane entry in the long-running Rogue Warrior series (Vengeance, etc.), starring a fictional Dick Marcinko, who battles and wisecracks his way through the world's bad guys. At a NATO conference in Vatican City, "Demo Dick," in his role as CEO of the Red Cell International security firm, delivers a get-serious-about-terrorism speech. Distracted by a waiter at the back of the room about to lob a grenade into the assembled dignitaries, Dick interrupts his remarks to nail the guy with a single pistol shot through the forehead. Shortly thereafter, Dick is caught up in a running battle with a dozen submachine gun"firing terrorists (minions of the shadowy Arab warrior known as Saladin) who are trying to seize St. Paul's Cathedral. The action"also featuring female Delta Force fighter Trace Dahlgren"catapults to Sicily, Cairo, Shanghai and the Thailand jungle, continuing almost nonstop to the final climax back in Rome. Once again, Marcinko and DeFelice's iconoclastic hero takes no prisoners while kicking terrorist butt in this breezy techno-thriller.

This third book in the Rogue Warrior series, in which the Rogue Warrior goes up against fundamentalist terrorists, spent four weeks on PW's bestseller list.