Sword Point [Hardcover]

Set in the late 1980s, Sword Point begins with the peacetime routine of an American Army unit in the middle of a training exercise at Ft. Campbell, Ky. In a scene that mixes Coyle's fine eye for detail and wry humorous touches, Staff Sergeant Donald Duncan's infantry platoon carefully sets up an ambush against an OPFOR (opposing force):

"The ensuing firefight would short but bloodless. The men of both Duncan's platoon and the OPFOR....were using MILES, short for "multiple integrated laser engagement system." Each weapon was tipped with a rectangular gray box which emitted a laser beam every time the weapon was fired. Every man....had laser detectors on his helmet and web gear that would detect the laser from another weapon. When this happened, a buzzer, also attached to each man's gear, would go off, telling him and his buddies that he was 'dead.' The use of MILES ensured that there would be no doubt who won and who lost, a far cry from the days when most training exercises degenerated into screaming matches of 'I shot you' and 'No you didn't.' "

But as Duncan and his men "struggle" through their training exercise, halfway around the world a Soviet armored column rumbles toward the Iranian border in the predawn darkness. The Soviet leadership has decided to invade -- Coyle never really tells us why -- Iran, planning to conquer the country and reach the Straits of Hormuz in four weeks' time. Some of the junior Red Army officers are apprehensive -- the Afghan War has taught the Soviets much about the costs of fighting against desperate Muslims -- but Moscow and the Soviet General Staff don't believe there will be much opposition from Iran...or the West.

But as soon as the Soviets launch their invasion, America mobilizes, and soon U.S. forces head to the Persian Gulf. Within weeks, the news are full of images of combat between the two superpowers as battles are fought on air, land and sea.

But the Soviets are not the only enemy the American forces face in Iran. The ayatollahs still rule the Islamic Iranian Republic, and while they fight fiercely against the Russians, the Iranians welcome the U.S. forces not with flowers but with bullets. And even when Iran's forces are forced to retreat under pressure from both foreign forces, the mullahs who wield power in Tehran pin their hopes on a desperate and deadly gambit that, if it works, will destroy the homelands of the nations the Iranians call the Great and Lesser Satans.

But Coyle's talent lies not just with the description of grand strategy, the tactics and weapons used in war, but with the very human portrayal of his cast of characters. Whether he is writing about Major Scott Dixon of the U.S. Army or Junior Lieutenant Nikolai Ilvanich of the Soviet Army, Coyle wisely doesn't resort to the stereotypical "good guy vs. bad guy" style of storytelling. Yes, this is a novel of war, but Coyle (a former Army officer who served in Desert Storm) has genuine affection for the profession of arms and the men and women who serve their country, no matter which country it is.

Further, Coyle doesn't delve as deeply into the motivations of his characters as he did in "Team Yankee", which is a far better thought-out novel. Major Scott Dixon, a recurring character in several of Coyle's later novels, makes his appearances, and there are some particularly moving moments. especially towards the conclusion of the novel, involving dead American soldiers. But the strategy of not spending too much time on any particular character has the sad effect of making it difficult to really care about any of them.

One other notable characteristic is the fact that the reader is never given much of an explanation or rationalization of the US' involvement in a Soviet invasion of Iran. At first, this was a major annoyance, until it dawned on me that Coyle was making a subtle point about soldiers as implements of policy without necessarily understanding those policies or even knowing what they are, similar to Vietnam.

Overall, this isn't as good a novel as his first effort "Team Yankee", which did a better job of exploring the psyche of the line soldier (Coyle's fundamental motif). But it's decent enough on its own. The author has a point he's trying to make, and he does indeed do so.