Houndstooth

De: Gary Alan Ruse

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

HOUNDSTOOTH set the stage for techno-thriller novels that would follow a decade or more later. It’s the story of a special German Shepherd dog, "Major," part of an Army dog handling experiment using a micro brain implant linked to computers and satellite relays to allow a remote handler to see what the dog is seeing and send him commands. Major is sent on an emergency spy mission deep into Russia. The Problem: To conduct the most important espionage mission in history. The Condition: It is not humanly possible. The Solution: Operation Houndstooth. At last the complex American radar and defensive missile network has been replaced, and the ring of laser-armed satellites known as “Cerberus” is complete. It is a foolproof defense system, capable of detecting and destroying all known weapons of attack. And then, as the switchover is about to be completed, on the eve of a major weapons summit conference, grim news comes through the espionage pipeline: The Russians have discovered a flaw in the Cerberus system! The information has cost our only agent-in- place his life, and has sent the Defense Department into shock. It means that this country will be defenseless, open to massive attack at the whim of an enemy. Unless the Russian secret can be discovered, the President will enter the critical summit meeting totally at the mercy of his adversaries. Racing against the ticking hours, a crack team of scientists and technicians is rushed to a special building at the Houston space center, and an array of the most sophisticated gadgetry of the computer age is hastily assembled. The mission is to penetrate a Russian laboratory deep in the West Siberian Lowland. The problem is that we have no agent in the area, and the Russians have thrown an impregnable security screen around the remote installation. Yet some one must get through, get the vital information, and bring it out. With the best brains of the military and civilian space technology, with computer banks of unimaginable complexity, with a world-wide espionage network, the job is just not possible. And thus is born the most extraordinary spy ever sent into the field, on a mission no human could complete. The agent: a very special German Shepherd dog! The Philadelphia Inquirer praised HOUNDSTOOTH as "one of those books that takes today's technology and carries it one giant leap forward....Michael Crichton writes books like these." Joseph Fanzone, Jr. of The Baltimore Sun said "One thing that shows through in 'Houndstooth' is the care he's taken to research his subject thoroughly and present background to his readers. The plot is tightly constructed; it is reminiscent of an early 'Mission Impossible' script for its twists and turns and clever solutions. And there are characters who tense up and sound off and threaten the mission in credible ways." KIRKUS REVIEW An incredible canine caper -- actually a joint Army-Defense Department project -- in which a German Shepherd named Major, implanted with both a transceiver and a Computer Augmented Memory system, is satellited into Russia in order to safeguard a new laser-armed defense system (Cerberus) which the Soviets seem able to circumvent. The action -- no Kennel Rations, there's tons of it -- ranges from the superdog's training base in Missouri to NASA Control in Houston to Omsk, USSR, as the two countries' military and intelligence personnel frantically counterespionage each other a few hours before a crucial summit conference gets underway. Once in enemy territory, the pip-of-a-pup protagonist has to tangle with a Siberian timber wolf and reenter the Omsk Technical Institute to fulfill his mission -- namely, relaying the counter-Cerberus research back to the States via optic nerve impulses which are transmitted into images by a computer. Add to this a number of stock characters including a disapproving NASA administrator ...and...TV viewable fare a la Doberman Gang -- anything but lean as a hound's tooth.