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A review by horthhill
Overkill by Ted Bell
1.0
“Overkill” by Ted Bell is a thriller that takes place in Switzerland. Like Swiss cheese, Overkill has plenty of holes. The hero Alex Hawke is a British Lord who seems not to know how to address the Queen. To help Hawke, it’s “Her Majesty the Queen” and not “Her Royal Majesty”. But no matter, Hawke’s seven year old son is kidnapped in an highly implausible ruse involving a gondola on a Swiss mountain. Hawke and his spy friends and his mercenary friends and his immense wealth are all used to track down his son. The holes in the plot are legion as Hawke’s ex-legionnaires wreak mayhem over the bad guys and the story. The bad guys even have their very own plot holes.
My favourite trouble-some plot hole is that of the Black Arrow-the giant Russian steam locomotive -as it sneaks fifty train cars full of bad people and apparatus and mini-tanks into Switzerland. The first problem that I see is the complete lack of any en route service for a steam locomotive travelling from Russia to Switzerland. Where exactly would such a museum piece - it was stolen from a museum in the Ukraine-find water and coal stops. No where. And, trains of all types can’t steer themselves. They can’t travel on tracks independent of traffic control. Switches along the route must be coordinated with a central railway traffic control center to avoid all those other trains travelling on the same track from making unfortunate and violent ‘meetings.’ Suppose that the Black Arrow survived the collision with the concrete barrier that the Swiss railway people have erected on a stretch of track that is out of operation. That is, survive the high speed collision without derailing and jack-knifing. Swiss traffic control would declare the Black Arrow a runaway and do everything to switch it off the mainline. Maybe even deliberately derail it. But the Black Arrow would never make it to the rail yards of Zurich. The Zurich rail traffic control would clearly notice a fifty car steam train that’s been, at the very least, declared a runaway. Now, say the train does survive, then how would Col Beauregard shunt the Black Arrow train quietly into the back of the Zurich rail yard? Well, by the train travelling at walking speed while someone would be literally walking ahead of the train and manually operating switches (points.) But, without coordinating with traffic control, Beauregard would be maneuvering the steam train right into the path of some other on-coming train. Death and destruction for all the bad guys from a huge train wreck.
Of course, Swiss traffic control would clearly see the runaway/illicit train the whole time from the border of Switzerland to Zurich. It would not be a stealth operation. Security would meet them. All the bad guys would not be able to carry out Operation Overkill because they either would be caught in a huge firefight in the Zurich rail yards or they would all be dead in a massive train wreck as their uncontrolled steam train, racing along at 80 miles an hour, collided with the first train it encountered on the Swiss track. Story would end there. No bad guys, left.
My favourite trouble-some plot hole is that of the Black Arrow-the giant Russian steam locomotive -as it sneaks fifty train cars full of bad people and apparatus and mini-tanks into Switzerland. The first problem that I see is the complete lack of any en route service for a steam locomotive travelling from Russia to Switzerland. Where exactly would such a museum piece - it was stolen from a museum in the Ukraine-find water and coal stops. No where. And, trains of all types can’t steer themselves. They can’t travel on tracks independent of traffic control. Switches along the route must be coordinated with a central railway traffic control center to avoid all those other trains travelling on the same track from making unfortunate and violent ‘meetings.’ Suppose that the Black Arrow survived the collision with the concrete barrier that the Swiss railway people have erected on a stretch of track that is out of operation. That is, survive the high speed collision without derailing and jack-knifing. Swiss traffic control would declare the Black Arrow a runaway and do everything to switch it off the mainline. Maybe even deliberately derail it. But the Black Arrow would never make it to the rail yards of Zurich. The Zurich rail traffic control would clearly notice a fifty car steam train that’s been, at the very least, declared a runaway. Now, say the train does survive, then how would Col Beauregard shunt the Black Arrow train quietly into the back of the Zurich rail yard? Well, by the train travelling at walking speed while someone would be literally walking ahead of the train and manually operating switches (points.) But, without coordinating with traffic control, Beauregard would be maneuvering the steam train right into the path of some other on-coming train. Death and destruction for all the bad guys from a huge train wreck.
Of course, Swiss traffic control would clearly see the runaway/illicit train the whole time from the border of Switzerland to Zurich. It would not be a stealth operation. Security would meet them. All the bad guys would not be able to carry out Operation Overkill because they either would be caught in a huge firefight in the Zurich rail yards or they would all be dead in a massive train wreck as their uncontrolled steam train, racing along at 80 miles an hour, collided with the first train it encountered on the Swiss track. Story would end there. No bad guys, left.