Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "tom-clancy"
Book Review: Tom Clancy Duty and Honor by Grant Blackwood
Tom Clancy Duty and Honor (A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel)
Grant Blackwood
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons (June 14, 2016)
Publication Date: June 14, 2016
Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
Reviewed by: Dr. Wesley Britton
For some time now, I’ve felt the Tom Clancy estate isn’t doing Clancy’s legacy any favors by all those continuation novels written by other authors. True, Clancy himself started it all by creating franchises like Net Force, Splintered Cell, and Ops Center bringing in other authors to pump out new adventures in each of those series. It worked well enough for many years, but I admit when the Ops Center series was rebooted, I began to feel all these yarns were becoming paint-by-numbers formulas.
The flagship series was, of course, the Jack Ryan books followed by the Jack Ryan, Jr. novels. Jack Ryan, Jr., became a major character in 2003’s Teeth of the Tiger, which was also the introduction to The Campus, a private covert ops organization using the cover of Hendly Associates which funds the operation. In the eight books that followed, seven of which were co-written or fully authored by Mark Greaney, Ryan Jr. is part of the team sent out by the Campus normally battling terrorists or the Russians while Ryan Sr. is president except for the term when Ed Kealty sits in the White House.
While Jack Jr. is ostensibly signed on as a desk-bound analyst for The Campus, he soon joins Brian and Dominic Caruso in killing terrorists out in the field. In 2010’s Dead or Alive, John Clark and Ding Chavez join the team, and the series then very much centers on this ensemble cast. In 2015, Grant Blackwood contributed Dead or Alive to the series and then Duty and Honor this year, but his new volume has little of the flavor of any previous Ryan outing.
For one matter, Jack Jr. is on an extended “sabbatical” from The Campus so the entire supporting cast is missing. For another matter, this version of Jack Jr. is more than foolish and reckless from beginning to end—most of his choices are described as impulsive and many make little sense considering the training and connections established in the previous books. The plot is equally nonsensical with none of the scope of any previous Clancy novel starring his principal characters. “Duty”? Duty to who? Most of the storyline is Junior on a personal mission he doesn’t understand. “Honor”? How so? What honor is being upheld when Junior is seeking some assassin who is out to kill him but who balks at carrying out the deed?
The story opens up a bit, if not with an attractive supporting cast of characters, as Junior investigates the European Union’s private security firm, Rostock Security Group, and its founder, Jürgen Rostock. There’s a string of corpses as Ryan uncovers the truth behind Rostock’s benevolent face as catastrophic events are being planned.
What is most surprising about this disappointing book is that Grant Blackwood has a pretty good track record with scribing thrillers, including co-authorship with Clive Cussler. Judging from reviews at Amazon, few readers have any idea how this drop in quality came about. The good news is that Jack Ryan Sr. and Mark Greaney return this December in Tom Clancy True Faith and Allegiance. Perhaps there’s life in the literary epic yet, even as Amazon is preparing a TV series showcasing Jack Ryan. Stay tuned. But jump over Duty and Honor—a low ebb in an otherwise essential saga.
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com at:
goo.gl/DPI6z4
Grant Blackwood
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons (June 14, 2016)
Publication Date: June 14, 2016
Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
Reviewed by: Dr. Wesley Britton
For some time now, I’ve felt the Tom Clancy estate isn’t doing Clancy’s legacy any favors by all those continuation novels written by other authors. True, Clancy himself started it all by creating franchises like Net Force, Splintered Cell, and Ops Center bringing in other authors to pump out new adventures in each of those series. It worked well enough for many years, but I admit when the Ops Center series was rebooted, I began to feel all these yarns were becoming paint-by-numbers formulas.
The flagship series was, of course, the Jack Ryan books followed by the Jack Ryan, Jr. novels. Jack Ryan, Jr., became a major character in 2003’s Teeth of the Tiger, which was also the introduction to The Campus, a private covert ops organization using the cover of Hendly Associates which funds the operation. In the eight books that followed, seven of which were co-written or fully authored by Mark Greaney, Ryan Jr. is part of the team sent out by the Campus normally battling terrorists or the Russians while Ryan Sr. is president except for the term when Ed Kealty sits in the White House.
While Jack Jr. is ostensibly signed on as a desk-bound analyst for The Campus, he soon joins Brian and Dominic Caruso in killing terrorists out in the field. In 2010’s Dead or Alive, John Clark and Ding Chavez join the team, and the series then very much centers on this ensemble cast. In 2015, Grant Blackwood contributed Dead or Alive to the series and then Duty and Honor this year, but his new volume has little of the flavor of any previous Ryan outing.
For one matter, Jack Jr. is on an extended “sabbatical” from The Campus so the entire supporting cast is missing. For another matter, this version of Jack Jr. is more than foolish and reckless from beginning to end—most of his choices are described as impulsive and many make little sense considering the training and connections established in the previous books. The plot is equally nonsensical with none of the scope of any previous Clancy novel starring his principal characters. “Duty”? Duty to who? Most of the storyline is Junior on a personal mission he doesn’t understand. “Honor”? How so? What honor is being upheld when Junior is seeking some assassin who is out to kill him but who balks at carrying out the deed?
The story opens up a bit, if not with an attractive supporting cast of characters, as Junior investigates the European Union’s private security firm, Rostock Security Group, and its founder, Jürgen Rostock. There’s a string of corpses as Ryan uncovers the truth behind Rostock’s benevolent face as catastrophic events are being planned.
What is most surprising about this disappointing book is that Grant Blackwood has a pretty good track record with scribing thrillers, including co-authorship with Clive Cussler. Judging from reviews at Amazon, few readers have any idea how this drop in quality came about. The good news is that Jack Ryan Sr. and Mark Greaney return this December in Tom Clancy True Faith and Allegiance. Perhaps there’s life in the literary epic yet, even as Amazon is preparing a TV series showcasing Jack Ryan. Stay tuned. But jump over Duty and Honor—a low ebb in an otherwise essential saga.
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com at:
goo.gl/DPI6z4
Book Review: Late Apex by Jeremy DeConcini
Late Apex
Jeremy DeConcini
Print Length: 231 pages
Publication Date: October 6, 2017
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
ASIN: B075Y976D7
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075Y976D7/...
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton
In previous reviews of Jeremy DeConcini’s three Ben Adams novels, some readers have observed similarities with Tom Clancy thrillers. Others note comparisons with John MacDonald’s Travis McGee. I concur on both counts.
I often thought of Clancy during the first quarter or so of Late Apex. That’s because of the layered structure where author DeConcini introduced all of his major players in their various international settings in alternating descriptive passages. Then, I forgot all about Clancy when DeConcini focuses on his primary protagonist, Ben Adams, and it’s hard not to think of McGee, even if Adams is far more West Coast in his tastes and interests.
Ben Adams is a former FBI agent who spent time in jail for accidently killing a DEA agent. His new quest is to stay out of prison while enjoying surfing, drinking beer on the beach, hanging with his dog Geronimo, and watching motorcycle races. But the FBI, in the person of Howard Goodman, wants Adams to go undercover and he best comply to keep his freedom. He must help the Department of Homeland Security stop ISIS from getting key trigger devices for a nuclear weapon. This means he must infiltrate the inner circle around Giancarlo Trentino, the head of an U.S. defense contractor more interested in profits than potential global consequences. Or, at least, that’s what we are led to believe.
By the last third of the novel, few readers will be thinking of Travis McGee anymore but might instead think of other novelists like Geoffrey Jenkins or Peter Vollmer who know the South African terrain intimately, especially writers who know the means to survive when nature and various groups of killers are after you. In this long, vivid, and very exciting section of the book, Adams is very much on his own, encountering a series of surprising allies and mysterious adversaries. I must admit, the conclusion is rather abrupt and there are unresolved matters left dangling. So a fourth book might be in the offing, despite the series being described as a trilogy?
As is often the case for such thrillers, the verisimilitude comes from the author’s personal experience like DeConcini’s tenure as a Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security. Thus, his use of interdepartmental conflicts rings perfectly true. In addition, his focus on the quirky and very individualistic Adams and Adams’ race from those out to get him keeps the novel from following familiar formulas.
In short, I can easily recommend Late Apex to anyone who likes entertaining thrillers with a very personal focus. Character matters even in an extremely fast-paced story full of surprises and clever twists. It’s the sort of book that encourages me to want to read the two books that preceded it and hope that dangling conclusion isn’t the end of the saga.
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Nov. 7, 2017:
https://is.gd/lusUxF
Jeremy DeConcini
Print Length: 231 pages
Publication Date: October 6, 2017
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
ASIN: B075Y976D7
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075Y976D7/...
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton
In previous reviews of Jeremy DeConcini’s three Ben Adams novels, some readers have observed similarities with Tom Clancy thrillers. Others note comparisons with John MacDonald’s Travis McGee. I concur on both counts.
I often thought of Clancy during the first quarter or so of Late Apex. That’s because of the layered structure where author DeConcini introduced all of his major players in their various international settings in alternating descriptive passages. Then, I forgot all about Clancy when DeConcini focuses on his primary protagonist, Ben Adams, and it’s hard not to think of McGee, even if Adams is far more West Coast in his tastes and interests.
Ben Adams is a former FBI agent who spent time in jail for accidently killing a DEA agent. His new quest is to stay out of prison while enjoying surfing, drinking beer on the beach, hanging with his dog Geronimo, and watching motorcycle races. But the FBI, in the person of Howard Goodman, wants Adams to go undercover and he best comply to keep his freedom. He must help the Department of Homeland Security stop ISIS from getting key trigger devices for a nuclear weapon. This means he must infiltrate the inner circle around Giancarlo Trentino, the head of an U.S. defense contractor more interested in profits than potential global consequences. Or, at least, that’s what we are led to believe.
By the last third of the novel, few readers will be thinking of Travis McGee anymore but might instead think of other novelists like Geoffrey Jenkins or Peter Vollmer who know the South African terrain intimately, especially writers who know the means to survive when nature and various groups of killers are after you. In this long, vivid, and very exciting section of the book, Adams is very much on his own, encountering a series of surprising allies and mysterious adversaries. I must admit, the conclusion is rather abrupt and there are unresolved matters left dangling. So a fourth book might be in the offing, despite the series being described as a trilogy?
As is often the case for such thrillers, the verisimilitude comes from the author’s personal experience like DeConcini’s tenure as a Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security. Thus, his use of interdepartmental conflicts rings perfectly true. In addition, his focus on the quirky and very individualistic Adams and Adams’ race from those out to get him keeps the novel from following familiar formulas.
In short, I can easily recommend Late Apex to anyone who likes entertaining thrillers with a very personal focus. Character matters even in an extremely fast-paced story full of surprises and clever twists. It’s the sort of book that encourages me to want to read the two books that preceded it and hope that dangling conclusion isn’t the end of the saga.
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Nov. 7, 2017:
https://is.gd/lusUxF
Book Review: A Conspiracy of Ravens (James Hicks) by Terrence McCauley
A Conspiracy of Ravens (James Hicks)
Terrence McCauley
Series:James Hicks (Book 3)
Publisher:Polis Books (September 19, 2017)
ISBN-10:1943818711
ISBN-13:978-1943818716
https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Rav...
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton
Over the years, a plethora of very fine novelists from Robert Ludlum to jack Higgins to Tom Clancy to Clive Kusler to Eric Van Lustabader to Gayle Lynds etc. etc. have made the spy thriller genre largely a paint-by-numbers playground. For the majority of these thrillers, readers know what to expect and what they expect is mostly action. Lots of action in series with recurring characters. Often these are interchangeable characters fighting terrorists with a variety of motives and modus operendi including exotic diseases and weapons, a hefty body count, and international consequences for whatever schemes the foes to humanity, liberty, democracy, or religious freedom have concocted. Quite often, the heroes are not only battling the evil-doers of the world but their own supposedly righteous superiors or other government agencies as well.
Still, the field is irresistibly magnetic for generation after generation of new writers, and Terrence McCauley is among the relative newcomers who know how to paint those numbers with exactly what thriller readers hope for. He’s done it twice before with the previous James Hicks novels, Sympathy for the Devil and A Murder of Crows. His main man, James Hicks, is now “Dean” of the clandestine intelligence organization known as The University. (Anyone think of Clancy’s “The Campus” here?) The University is so clandestine, the CIA didn’t know about it for decades and isn’t happy to learn about it now. So Hicks has to appease Charles “Carl” Demerest, head of Clandestine Services at the CIA. Hicks simultaneously keeps operational secrets from the agency while occasionally asking them for backup.
The only reason Demerest doesn’t declare war on the University is because they’re the prime weapon against The Vanguard, a shadowy and deadly organization comprised of weapons dealers, drug runners, and money launderers who want to up the stakes by instigating international wars. Before these schemes get off the ground, they hit with deadly efficiency the University’s home base, wipe out their field operatives, and engage in open warfare in New York, Washing D.C., Berlin, and China. Hicks is in their gun-sights as well.
A Conspiracy of Ravens is solid action that is the proverbial page-turner. It demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the uses of surveillance technology that is completely believable as the behemoths of international espionage clash all over the globe with an ever-growing body count. As usual, the story is so fast-moving, what is lost is much character depth. We get many insights into the likes and loves of James Hicks and some of his surviving team members, especially Roger, a more than versatile club owner. On the other hand, we keep hearing Hicks is in love with Mossad sniper Tali Sadden, but we see so little of her, she is the most shadowy, one-dimensional character in the book.
A Conspiracy of Ravens should please any fan of this genre, and fortunately it’s very enjoyable as a stand-alone story. I must admit McCauley was able to impress me in some passages, surprise me in others, especially in the final acts. It’s clear this isn’t the final saga in the series as we’re witnessing an ongoing war between the University and The Vanguard. Blofeld and S.P.E.C.T.R.E., move over. You just don’t cut it anymore.
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Jan. 22, 2018:
http://1clickurls.com/xnYzlbS
Terrence McCauley
Series:James Hicks (Book 3)
Publisher:Polis Books (September 19, 2017)
ISBN-10:1943818711
ISBN-13:978-1943818716
https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Rav...
Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton
Over the years, a plethora of very fine novelists from Robert Ludlum to jack Higgins to Tom Clancy to Clive Kusler to Eric Van Lustabader to Gayle Lynds etc. etc. have made the spy thriller genre largely a paint-by-numbers playground. For the majority of these thrillers, readers know what to expect and what they expect is mostly action. Lots of action in series with recurring characters. Often these are interchangeable characters fighting terrorists with a variety of motives and modus operendi including exotic diseases and weapons, a hefty body count, and international consequences for whatever schemes the foes to humanity, liberty, democracy, or religious freedom have concocted. Quite often, the heroes are not only battling the evil-doers of the world but their own supposedly righteous superiors or other government agencies as well.
Still, the field is irresistibly magnetic for generation after generation of new writers, and Terrence McCauley is among the relative newcomers who know how to paint those numbers with exactly what thriller readers hope for. He’s done it twice before with the previous James Hicks novels, Sympathy for the Devil and A Murder of Crows. His main man, James Hicks, is now “Dean” of the clandestine intelligence organization known as The University. (Anyone think of Clancy’s “The Campus” here?) The University is so clandestine, the CIA didn’t know about it for decades and isn’t happy to learn about it now. So Hicks has to appease Charles “Carl” Demerest, head of Clandestine Services at the CIA. Hicks simultaneously keeps operational secrets from the agency while occasionally asking them for backup.
The only reason Demerest doesn’t declare war on the University is because they’re the prime weapon against The Vanguard, a shadowy and deadly organization comprised of weapons dealers, drug runners, and money launderers who want to up the stakes by instigating international wars. Before these schemes get off the ground, they hit with deadly efficiency the University’s home base, wipe out their field operatives, and engage in open warfare in New York, Washing D.C., Berlin, and China. Hicks is in their gun-sights as well.
A Conspiracy of Ravens is solid action that is the proverbial page-turner. It demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the uses of surveillance technology that is completely believable as the behemoths of international espionage clash all over the globe with an ever-growing body count. As usual, the story is so fast-moving, what is lost is much character depth. We get many insights into the likes and loves of James Hicks and some of his surviving team members, especially Roger, a more than versatile club owner. On the other hand, we keep hearing Hicks is in love with Mossad sniper Tali Sadden, but we see so little of her, she is the most shadowy, one-dimensional character in the book.
A Conspiracy of Ravens should please any fan of this genre, and fortunately it’s very enjoyable as a stand-alone story. I must admit McCauley was able to impress me in some passages, surprise me in others, especially in the final acts. It’s clear this isn’t the final saga in the series as we’re witnessing an ongoing war between the University and The Vanguard. Blofeld and S.P.E.C.T.R.E., move over. You just don’t cut it anymore.
This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Jan. 22, 2018:
http://1clickurls.com/xnYzlbS
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