Book Reviews

 Here's a few quick reviews from books I've read or listened to in the past 2 months.  

Rage
by Simon Conway

Simply fantastic. I LOVED the 2nd book of the series, A Loyal Spy.  This book starts off with Jonah being sent to "The Zone" which is an unlawful area of desert between Iraq and Kuwait.  It's 2003 and everyone knows the Americans are about to invade.  Everyone is on pins and needles.  Jonah is sent to the zone as a what is believed to be punishment for actions he took against his wife's lover.  It's been 4 years since his divorce.  He's in a dark place.  As soon as he arrives in Iraq, he is right in the middle of the shit. Literally he can't trust anyone, not even his own British soldiers.  Everyone is looking for the lost container of "Land Rovers" from the 1991 Desert Storm.  BuIt why is everyone from the Russians, CIA, MI6, and to Saddam's oldest son Uday trying to locate these "Land Rovers?"  This book has it all...character development, great plot, realistic, and great writing...I felt like I was right ther with Jonah in the Zone.  

4 out of 5 stars. 

The Agent Runner
by Simon Conway
Wow...what a great freaking book.  I absolutely love Conway's writing...yeah so what that I have to reread a few chapters a few hundred times. For me, his writing is so damn unique and fascinating. For example, I love the amount of detail Conway provides the reader on everything from what a character is thinking to describing the region.  Hell, he may even write a few pages on a type of gun that is being used.  Any other writer...boring.  But Simon, fascintating shit.  When reading his books it feels like a biography.  Agent Runner is about a MI6 handler who had the impossible...an agent inside Pakistan's ISI.  The story takes place right after the Bin Laden raid.  It's such a realistic plot...again it had a feel of a biography or non-fiction.  

5 stars...easily one of my top books ever.  

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
by Kai Bird
This book won the pulitzer prize in either 2007 or 2008.  Going into the book I was familiar with Kai Bird as I had read his biography on Robert Ames (The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames) and his tragic death in the 1983 US Embassy bombing in Beirut.  American Prometheus met and exceeded my expectations...the research was top notch.  Kai did a great job of painting a picture of American Political life in the McCarthy 1950's.  It was infuriating learning how the far-right tainted a great man's career by falsely painting him as a traitor.  Was Robert a communist?  Robert insisted no even though he hung around that circle in the 1930's.  My thought is he may have agreed with communist way of life at some early point in his life.  But I'm 100% sure he was no traitor. Such a great and fascinating book.  

5 stars for me.

Charlie Muffin series 1-11
By Brian Freemantle

I have my friend Shane to thank for introducing me to Brian Freemantle's Charlie Muffin series.  Holy cow what a great fun it is to be on the Charlie M rollarcoaster. Charlie is a unique and fascinating man.  He is a successful and brilliant British Intelligence officer who is quite the interesting man.  He tends to be overlooked by his enemies and peers but that is a mistake for he is one vindictive, cunning, brilliant man.  The story starts off with him falling out of favor with the new British Intelligence regime.  He's old school and onery...he doesn't get along with his collegeagues or bosses.  He's trying to get an asset across the Berlin Wall in the 1950's.  From that point on the story is full of trechery and deceipt.  The series is fantastic...some books better than others.  But the theme is about Charlie outwitting his colleagues and enemies....most of the time.  Charlie is a flawed man and he makes mistakes and that is what I love about him.  We are all flawed...not everyone is James Bond.  I can't wait to read books 12-16.

Eight Hours from England
by Anthony Quayle
Another great recommendation from my friend Shane.  This is a first person story about love, loyalty, adventure and courage.  It's the early stages of WWII and Major John Overton is in love with Ann but for that feeling is not returned.  He is assigned a most difficult mission in Albania because it was hard to figure out his allies.  There were the nationlists who supported Germany, the communists who hated Germany and the partisans who hated both.  I wonderful book...I really liked the character John Overton. 

Solid 3 stars

Book Review 13 - 18

 I'm combining a few reviews.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.  

This book has been in my queue for 2 decades.  It was a depressing read for sure.  But Definitely worthy of all the accolades the book received.  Frank writes about his impoverished childhood in Limrick, Ireland.  His dad is from Northern Ireland and an IRA supporter whereas his mom is a protestant.  Like I said, a very depressing read but so compelling. 

'Tis by Frank McCourt.  This picks up where AA left off.  Another very well written book but this one bothered me a bit more.  In short, Frank pissed me off in this book and I'll leave it at that.

The Contact by Rossa McPhillips.  This book caught my attention from a spybrary podcast. I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't know much about the history of the IRA and all the conflicts in Northern Ireland.  As a result, I was really excited to read this book.  Great plot and I found the characters very interesting.  

The Crocodile Hunter by Gerald Seymour.  Thanks to Tim Shipman, I'm just getting introduced to Seymour.  He is an excellent writer.  This has a good plot and is well written.  My issue is with the main character, Jonas. I don't particularly like him..I don't dislike him either.  I just couldn't connect with him.  I need to like or dislike the main character...I want the main character to have personality to him/her...that's just my preference.  Like I said, well written with a good plot.  

Black Wolf by Kathleen Kent.  The main character, Mel, is a CIA agent who's has this gift-like "super power" with facial recognition.  Normally, if a "super power" is involved, I'm out (unless it's a movie/show with my 13 year old son and it involves Star Wars/Marvel/DC Comics...ha).  However, that was not the case with this book. Kent did a good job writing about Mel's facial recognition skill.  It wasn't over the top at all.  I really enjoyed this book and I'm guessing this is a start of a series.  If so, I'll be reading book 2. 

The Cassandra Complex by Frazer Douglas.  I came across this book from the Spybrarian's favorite books of 2022 that the Great Shane put together for us. Similar to The Frenchman, I desperately wanted to love this book.  It started out promising but I just had an issue keeping up. It was constantly changing timelines, locations, introducing more and more characters, introducing more back/side plots...it was just too hard to keep up. I hate bringing it up because I'm the last person on Earth to criticize someone's writing/grammar, but I think there are a lot of grammar issues.  So much in fact, that whole paragraphs had to be ignored because I couldn't understand the writing.  At first, I thought it was me being an ignorant Yank who wasn't understanding the British lingo...and maybe it was? I did some research and I think this was self-published.  If that's the case, I think with a good publisher and editor, this will be an excellent book.