The Power Barons

Hawk #3: The Power Barons by Dan Streib. Mike Hawk receives a call while relaxing in Acapulco. An engineer in a nuclear power plant found out that Mike holds a high position in the company, and they are fighting a possible meltdown. Hawk wasn’t aware that he held any interest in the power plant, and it turns out he doesn’t. His CIA buddy had released the information to the engineer so Hawk would be brought in. Hawk jets to the location in time to help make the right decision to stop the meltdown. An environmentalist group is on hand protesting the power plant. Someone wants a lot of deaths, it seems. Naturally, a beautiful girl is leading the protestors, and she may have something to do with the incident. Returning to Acapulco he decides to do some scuba diving and sees a naked girl also in the water. Yep, it’s the same girl who was at the protest at the US power plant. Before he can catch her two scuba divers try to kill them, and Hawk kills one and saves the girl while the other man, injured, escapes. Taking her to the boat, they make love all night, and then she deserts him for another boat. Then more men try to frame him for the assassination of the US Vice President who is also in Mexico to make a speech, but Hawk escapes the frame and kills one of the men. Now, whoever wants him dead (and the reader knows from the start who the mastermind is), his boat is attacked and blown up killing his men. He and his CIA pal are running around dodging bullets and escaping traps, until Hawk learns that an oil tanker is heading for a port in a storm, and the girl is waiting with more protesters, so he has the CIA buddy grab him another jet, then a helicopter to set him on the doomed tanker, where he is again almost killed. Well, it sounds like a lot of action, and really it is. However, the story doesn’t hold your interest. Mike Hawk was a newspaperman until situations put him in charge of super funds, which is now in a company called Crusader, making him The Crusader. The mastermind is super rich; he just wants power now. The way he plans on getting it is through energy and position. But since Hawk messes up some of his plans, he decides he needs the challenge and keeps after the ex-newspaperman. It could have been a pretty good story, but the writing just fails to keep the reader (me, in this case) interested in all that is going on. Really, it should have been a quick read, but took me three days to read.