The Brink

by Richard Setlowe and Setlowe

Book Overview

1958. The U.S. and China have clashed over two obscure, barren islands in the Straits of Taiwan. Suddenly the cold war reaches the boiling point as the aircraft carrier-based Black Knights Navy squadron is placed on full alert--on call for World War III.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671672665
• ISBN13: 9780671672669
• Release Date: September 1989
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Length: 254 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Uncommon naval aviation story

"The Brink" follows the trials and triumphs (mostly trials) of a young naval aviator during the Quemoy-Matsu Crisis of 1958. Prior to the sino-soviet split, the Red Chinese threatened to invade the Nationalist held islands, with Russian nuclear weaponry holding the US forces back from a preemptive attack on the PRC. Instead, US Navy fighters armed with "special weapons" zoom near the critical lines at 1300 mph. Between their distance from home, their own meager resources and the rigors of naval aviation, the pilots of our hero's squadron are whittled to the bone. The main character, who writes in first person, isn't even a very good pilot (unfortunately, he never gets a chance to show his stuff in combat ) instead, the elements and the tricky aspects of flying planes from aircraft carriers put him to the test. If not a peerless warrior, he at least displays a supernatural capacity for survival, even as other planes crash into the sea on aborted carrier landings ("bolters") or simply vanish. The squadron commander, a scarred warrior (literally: he's got a fake lower-leg and you almost never hear him talk) has no choice but to keep him around, knowing that the narrator is essentially all they've got."The Brink" is an old book, but obviously one that hasn't made a dent the way "Flight of the Intruder" has, which is a shame. The hero's sense of self-deprecation is light, but strong enough to keep him from being one of those action figures who populate other military aviation novels. In fact, it's refreshing to read an aviation novel that stays focused on one person (most are about a host of people, few of whom become convincing characters). It's an extreme that perhaps goes a bit far (it would have been nice if he did have some friends, something to broaden our horizons; instead, the narrator's solitude gives the rest of us chronic tunnel vision). Also, it would have been great if he could have given us some sense of what it's like to actually fly the mighty F-8 Crusader, one of the legendary machines in the history of air warfare. Also, although the author adequately describes the underlying global situation, it never manages to connect that with the desperation of the round-the-clock ops suffered by the pilots here - any chronic shortages in men or aircraft coinciding with an even less-than-earth shattering situation would probably result in US military units being put in high-tension, low-margin-for-error operations in which planes and the men who flew them would be stretched to the breaking point. Setlowe misses a great chance to elevate the crisis to one of WWIII proportions by having our hero have to deal with the nuclear weapons he may be forced to fly with. Instead, the nukes remain shadowy Mcguffins - objects whose presence is more felt than realized. Also, the end is a bit of a cop out. (We all know that the Quemoy-Matsu crisis ended in anti-climax, but couldn't the author have given us something less pat than what he ends th