Havoc by Steven F. Freeman is an Action Spy-type/Conspiracy novel set mostly in Italy.
The one issue I have with this genre is the superman in the real world hero. It's nothing against Mr. Freeman, but just the genre in general. A secret agent, or in this case an disabled war vet, is fighting against an entire establishment to uncover a horrible truth. The settings for these types of novels are supposed to be based in the real world, yet the hero is always a one-shot-kill kind of guy with insurmountable other talents. I know that it creates a level of excitement for the story, and the hero has to stand out -because hey he's the hero- but I think it would be interesting if one of these types of novels had a more realistic, flawed hero.
I do appreciate Mr. Freeman's effort to give us something different by giving the hero a war wound which limits his prowess, but the limitations seem to disappear during the action sequences and then suddenly come back after. I can appreciate this because I have a disability myself, and often times in the heat of the moment you can ignore the pain only to have it return with a vengeance. I hate to give a criticism without at least some sort of advice to solve the issue, but this genre is not my forte, so I don't know how I would correct it if I were him. However, it did bother me a few times during the read. Maybe make him miss a few more shots, or have a bad guy not so mortally wounded (and I don't mean when the hero meant to hit him in the leg). Give them a gut shot, where they bleed out a little slower. Make the hero limp more, or have the disabled leg interfere more with his ability to maneuver. Own the injury. For most disabled people their disability is a huge consumer of their physical efforts, even if they won't admit it out-loud. Their limitations become part of their everyday life, so they don't feel like limitations, and the person can rise above their disability. However, the disability still remains. They just find a way to work around it. You could work that into the story. He can put down the pain most of the time, but it incapacitates him sometimes. He walks with more than just a limp after physical exertion. The story starts out great in recognizing the limitation, but it seems to have been forgotten as the story wears on. I don't mean to base the whole story around it, but the limitation is fairly inconsistent.
Okay, so on to the synopsis:
Imagine a memory chip which stored information on a sub-atomic level, using the actual electrons of atoms. A chip the size of modern microchips would be able to hold almost limitless information. Such storage capacity would be worth lives. In Havoc, it is worth many lives. Companies around the world are aware of the possibility to create such technology, and they are racing to solve the puzzle and be the first to capitalize on the idea. Vidulum seems to have made the largest break in solving the puzzle, and a corporate theft soon follows. Alton Blackwell, the protagonist, gets caught up in the aftermath.
Alton is a war veteran with a disabling wound to his leg. He was an information officer (Cryptologist) in the military, and has since found a use for his IT skills in the private sector. He takes his girlfriend, Mallory Wilson, on a surprise vacation to Italy. The two have a long history together which dates back to his military days, though it wasn't romantic until more recently. Mallory still works for the government as an agent in the FBI.
On the third day of their vacation, while eating at a restaurant another couple had referred them to, the couple hear a gunshot and rush to see where it came from. They arrive just in time to see a man standing over the victim in the dark. The man runs, and Alton sees two other assailants in the dimly lit Colosseum. Instead of trying to pursue the assailants he chooses to help the victim. The man turns out to be the man who referred them to the restaurant to begin with.
The police find the situation fishy, and question Alton and Mallory at length, but Mallory's service in the FBI remove them from the list of suspects. However, the couple is asked to help in the investigation because they were the only ones to see the assailants (even though the dark prevented them from being able to give a description).
When the police are done with them, the couple tries to move on with their vacation. However, they find themselves being pulled back into the ever-escalating investigation. Mafia, assassins, foreign and domestic agents, corporate spies, and just about anyone else you could imagine are fighting each other to get at the information the man at the Colosseum was murdered for. Alton and Mallory are caught in the middle, and must fight their way out the only way that will keep them both alive, by solving the case.
Betrayal, action, love, mystery, plots, and conspiracy... The story was excellent, if a bit long. I enjoyed the multilayered plots and competitions to get at the microchip technology. However, I hate to say it, but it was fairly predictable. I guess this type of story has been done too many times.
I really liked that Mr. Freeman didn't just end the story with the culmination of the plots about the microchip technology coming to an end. After all, Alton and Mallory had a life before they were involved with the mess, and it was good to see them get back to it afterward. Most of these types of story just leave you hanging with the couple embracing as the fires burn in the background.
In all, I would give the story
