OMEGA BLUE

By Mel Odom

Harper Paperbacks (1993)

Reviewed by Robert Thompson October 21, 1993

This is a book that I would not have given a second glance to if I had seen it on the shelf of a bookstore. The cover looked like that of one of the many trash action- adventure novels cranked out by second rate writers that I outgrew twenty years ago.

Had I not been sent a copy for review, I would have missed a very entertaining story. Mel Odom has crafted a tale about an elite FBI crime fighting team, set about thirty years in the future. The story is almost as good a cop story as Joseph Wambaugh can write, and the future setting makes it even more fun.

OMEGA BLUE is the name of the FBI team. When the story opens, we find them raiding an operation that murders quantities of people then harvests their organs and other usable body parts for an underground medical community that offers transplants etc. to the highest bidder.

Continuing this case leads them into contact with political, bureaucratic and Mafia people who have various reasons to help or hinder the team.

Although the characters in OMEGA BLUE are kind of "Super Copish" they are only a step or so beyond what extremely dedicated and well trained people could achieve, and have the advantage of technology more advanced than we have now, so they are very dynamic characters, yet we only need to stretch our imaginations a little to "believe in them.

The plot, operations and tactics are also quite believable. Either Mel Odom has worked "on the street" as an officer of the law, or he has done a lot of research into the way things work. Given the slightly futuristic setting, I can see this story transpiring in real life with little change from how things work in this story.

OMMEGA BLUE is a quick and easy read, and if you like the action adventure genre, it should be worth your time, and the price of the paperback.