The Klar try to invade the Earth using simulated old people to plant H-bombs in world wide major cities. But a hard-boiled detective saves the day. ( )

Well, 2 things first off:

1, this book is not written by William T Riker. According to the internet not at all, and in present day Frakes apparently hates it.

2, this book is obviously a set up for a series that never came, and this is now just a standalone book.

So, keeping those things in mind-- This is an okay book. The real author, Dean Wesley Smith, is a long time for-hire series writer with lots of Star Trek books to his name, I'm sure the reason he got this gig.

I couldn't ever recommend this book, but I don't regret reading it. It's more of a SciFi TV movie novelization than an actual novel. The pace is quick, which makes for an easy read, but almost too quick, as we are kind of just whisked along with the characters to a conclusion. And, the aliens are almost not seen at all. A first contact book with well thought out aliens, this is NOT. The aliens are actually not described AT ALL beyond physical appearance. They are simply the device of the "alien invasion", which I will admit is at least thought out a bit.

I probably actually give this 2 stars, but I was pleasantly surprised that the book did have a fair amount of story arc and closure at least for the book's characters and plot if not for the alien invasion as a whole, and was mostly satisfying as a stand alone book, instead of some "to be continued..." for a followup series that never happened. So, I gave it a bump for that. ( )