The Dogs of War in Espionage Aficionados

Dec 07, 2024 Corto rated it really liked it

This book should’ve been titled, “The Dogs of War: A Step-by-Step Manual for CEO’s and Mercenary Leaders on How To Take Over an Emerging African Nation”.

Definitely a cool time capsule here from the 1970’s, and an interesting counterpoint to Daniel Carney’s novel, The Wild Geese. Carney’s book develops much more rapidly and gets the reader into the fight relatively quickly compared to The Dogs of War, and is a gripping action novel. Its film is superior to The Dogs of War (with Christopher Walke This book should’ve been titled, “The Dogs of War: A Step-by-Step Manual for CEO’s and Mercenary Leaders on How To Take Over an Emerging African Nation”.

Definitely a cool time capsule here from the 1970’s, and an interesting counterpoint to Daniel Carney’s novel, The Wild Geese. Carney’s book develops much more rapidly and gets the reader into the fight relatively quickly compared to The Dogs of War, and is a gripping action novel. Its film is superior to The Dogs of War (with Christopher Walken and Tom Berenger), because it has a cheerfulness and an anachronistic British swagger not evident in TDoW.

However, Forsyth’s book was much more interesting to me than Carney’s. I tried reading TDoW as a teenager and was too bored to finish it. Carney’s book, I read straight through. It was more kinetic.

As a much older man now, Forsyth’s book held my attention. Though billed as a thriller, it’s more like a procedural. The reader is educated on everything from finance to logistics (with some sex and violence thrown in), as if it was written by an international affairs grad student working out every nut and bolt from a company who wants to hide its intentions to exploit resources from an impoverished African country, to securing a shell company, to moving money around to pay mercenaries who will eventually conduct the coup. And *then* we get into the logistics of getting all the mercs from Point A to the halls of the Zangaran presidential palace.

Honestly, despite how tedious it sounds, it kept me going to the very last page. I don’t know if Forsyth was 100% correct in all of his details, but they seem specific and complete enough to be at least credible for the era. It makes me wonder how something like this could be accomplished now. (If anyone can recommend a recent novel similar to this, let me know.)

If my description has already turned you off, give it a pass. The shooting doesn’t start until the very end of this long novel - and that sequence is brief compared to what came before. So, I’d recommend this only to people who’ve ever read an article or two in The Economist, or are more fascinated in the how than the bang bang.

I thought it was great though. The protagonist was cool and the antagonists sinister in a banal way. Great fun though! ...more

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Jun 26, 2010 Sandi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-mystery-thriller-suspense, read-2010

Not quite up to the standards of The Day of the Jackal or The Odessa File, but better than most modern day thrillers. Perhaps a bit too realistic (lots of descriptions of the very mundane details of procuring equipment and budgeting) and had quite the cynical outlook (which was a plus for me). The final part of the book flew by and I thought the ending was outstanding. ...more

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Mar 12, 2011 Joe Newell rated it liked it

Overall this book was very technical. Not really what I expected.

Essentially the author set the stage for the plot early, and then he documented the steps taken to reach the objective exhaustively. I thought the thoroughness of the detail a bit of a bore--some others may disagree--but to me it didn't work.

However, to redeem himself in my view, the author pulled out a somewhat unexpected ending and finale for the book.

Overall I say this book is worth reading. ...more

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