Finally got around to finishing this, and I have to say minus the mental ret-conning needed for placing a mid-40s RDA MacGyver in modern times, this was a very easy and enjoyable read.

Regarding the bolded, I think they managed to mostly nail that aspect of things. Making the connection in my mind from what I was reading to this being just another adventure for RDA's MacGyver was not hard. Tonally they did a very good job, and at no point did I really feel like this was something from out of the MacGyver realm.

I would definitely read another installment.

I'm about to get this book myself and give it a read. I'm just waiting a couple of things to get back in stock on Amazon before putting in an order.

Glad it sounds like an enjoyable read! Sure do miss the original MacGyver!

I have just received my copy of the book. I feel so fortunate to be just discovering Macgyver this time last year as not only am I just coming to the end of season 7 (first time watching the whole show...but not the last!), I am just in time for the beginning of a series of Macgyver novels.

It is very rare that I buy a book these days and rightly so when you can get them for free from your local library. This is one of those rare books that will now stake a claim for an entire shelf on the bookshelf to sit alongside the DVDs

I am actually excited to read it and keep sneaking peeks inside but alas, I have a Terry Pratchett to finish first!

Finished it last night. (SPOILERS below).

The bad guy and his whole evil plan was interesting. I kept waiting for the reveal that Hart was planning some sort of extinction level event to destroy human civilization, so that he could rebuild it to his specifications. (And was prepared to be a bit disappointed by it). That's what would have happened in a James Bond or Kingsman movie or a Tom Clancy novel. But of course this isn't James Bond or Kingsman or Tom Clancy, it's MacGyver, so Hart isn't that kind of guy. He doesn't want to collapse human civilization - all things being equal, he hopes it doesn't - he just thinks that it absolutely will, and is trying to plan for the aftermath. His big plan isn't to hurt humanity, it's mostly to just stay out of its way. You can see why MacGyver would have that "wait, is he actually the bad guy?" hesitation.

Of course, he is the bad guy, just not in as grand or obvious a way as the ones in those other franchises. And it's interesting because he is, in the end, a bad guy in exactly the same way as the governments and capitalists he hates. He's arrogant, self-absorbed, paranoid, petty, indifferent, and in the end too high on himself and on what he wants to think of consequences even when other people warn him about them. He flips the switch on a reactor that he's been warned might be unstable, because he really wants to - and he doesn't even stop and think about what might happen if he's wrong. Just like, in the end, a capitalist ignoring the global warming "alarmists" because he really wants his money and can't be bothered to inconvenience himself by thinking of the consequences. And of course when Hart is faced with the consequences of his decision, he simply tries to run and save his own skin, just like the self-absorbed politicians and spymasters he blames for making the world this way.

And that, even if not everything in the book was, was really in keeping with the spirit of the series. Not everything about "MacGyver" has aged well, but it was always good at hitting that "banality of evil" note, making evil look like something that wasn't grand and operatic and badass and kinda cool, but ugly, small, petty, and pathetic.