Safe Havens: Shadow Masters (Sean Havens Black Ops, #1) in SSG: Spy/Spec-Ops Group

Feb 01, 2014 Dave Schultz rated it really liked it

Shelves: spy-thriller, kindle

4.5 stars....Excellent debut novel. Great plot, great twist to keep you guessing.
At times a bit confusing and the dialogue at times was weak. Still I will be looking forward to more work by this author.

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Feb 02, 2014 Samuel rated it really liked it

NO SAFETY WHEN SPYING

=[4.6 Stars rounded up to 5]=

Hello. This is my first review on this site in a while. Due to a surprisingly busy year (all my extended family thought it would be the right time to visit me) and a mid-year visit to the parts of East Asia which I haven’t travelled to (the ROK was fantastic. Taiwan on the other hand was like being trapped in an oven set to “baking”), I have neglected to keep up and developed an increasingly large waiting list of books. So today, I will seek to NO SAFETY WHEN SPYING

=[4.6 Stars rounded up to 5]=

Hello. This is my first review on this site in a while. Due to a surprisingly busy year (all my extended family thought it would be the right time to visit me) and a mid-year visit to the parts of East Asia which I haven’t travelled to (the ROK was fantastic. Taiwan on the other hand was like being trapped in an oven set to “baking”), I have neglected to keep up and developed an increasingly large waiting list of books. So today, I will seek to thin that list by one book.

American spy/military thriller writers and moral ambiguity. Let’s face it, the two do not go hand in hand. Crafting morally grey tales is normally the preserve of British writers, such as Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American”, John Le Carre’s “The Honourable Schoolboy”, Charles Cumming’s “TYPHOON” or even Tom Wood’s “The Hunter”. All the big names among American thriller writers solidly prefer traditional black and white morality when writing their books. Not that I would begrudge them for it or consider it wrong, after all, many of those same authors worked hard to get where they are and usually receive hundreds of positive amazon reviews and thousands of sales for their efforts. However, there comes a point when even a good vs evil conflict can get boring, where even avid readers will start saying that they’ve “seen it all before.” Stories with moral ambiguity on the other hand, while unsettling for some are a lot more interesting, making the characters and plot more dynamic and forcing the reader to answer questions about whether the “hero” can still be called that. Today I will review a book which combines the well-researched narrative of a Brad Thor thriller tempered with the ruthlessness and brutality of a John Le Carre novel. Written by J.T. Patten, a man who has spent a considerable amount of time in the American Intelligence community, “Safe Havens” is the first spy thriller in a series featuring deniable asset Sean Havens who is forced to begin a walk into the dark places which other spy thrillers glorify, sugar-coat or try to avoid.

The story begins with a group of men leaving behind a crime scene they’ve manufactured. Having eviscerated an innocent family of an Afghanistan Veteran and turned their home into a something akin to the set of a horror film, they proceed to frame the Veteran for the murder of his family and for good measure, make it appear he is connected to the Mexican Drug Cartels with some planted cocaine packages. When the police arrive on the scene Chicago Police Detective Lars Bjorklund smells a rat and notices several details suggesting a frame-up. We then cut to two years later with the main character, Sean Havens conducting an operation in Sana Yemen. The objective is to create a response intended to manipulate the Yemen government into granting Uncle Sam a bigger presence in the Al Qaeda infested country. Noticing that he’s under surveillance, Havens shows his skill and with masterful timing sedates the tail following him before the man can react. He finds that his victim is a PMC and seeing that he has friends making a right arse of themselves, Havens drops a flashbang grenade into the middle of a Souk and maims the other contractors with a knife. He then manufactures a terrorist threat by handing the knife to an unwitting civilian, provokes the intended response the operation required and leaves while his dupe gets killed by armed civilians. Returning the safe house, Havens calls his wife and learns that his daughter has been raped by a stalker. He immediately drops everything and tries to get back to the states. The moment he does however, an unknown group attempts to destroy his life and sanity in a shockingly cruel campaign of psychological manipulation and betrayal. As he begins his walk through the dark in uncovering an insidious conspiracy born in the early faction fights of American Foreign Intelligence’s early days, Havens is forced to ask how far he is willing to go in keeping his country, his family and himself, safe.

Plot-wise, Safe Haven’s is somewhat unique compared to many American spy thrillers. Don’t be fooled by the cover art. There are no melodramatic gunfights or action scenes which are common in other novels. The violence is quick and stark, with the man who fires the first shot normally surviving during the events of the book. Instead, J.T. Patten appears to have taken the John Le Carre approach of psychological tension to heart, and the result is devastating. A main theme concerns the mental stress inherent in the high-stakes world of intelligence gathering, military conflict and how it effects the people who participate in it. The main villains of Safe Havens try to harness this psychological damage for their own ends, and some of their efforts were downright nightmarish. While trying to investigate and uncover why he was targeted, the main protagonist is forced to fight off the attempts by the forces opposing him to drive him to madness and disgrace. This mental battle of manipulation and wits is the foundation of Safe Havens plot and seeing it play out is one of my most memorable reading experiences of 2014. The other main highlight of the book is the main conspiracy. No spy thriller could ever exist without one, whether it’s being conducted by international terrorists or the men sworn to protect us. I commend the author for crafting a surprisingly well planned conspiracy for his book. Most conspiracies have grandiose goals like “kill everyone in the UN General Assembly Meeting” or “hijack the new F-35 fighter jet”. Mr Patten’s conspiracy on the other hand has shockingly realistic expectations and plausible logistics. Conducted by members of the American Intelligence community, its main objective is to ensure increased budget appropriations and justifying them through manufacturing mass casualty events and then targeting military veterans to be used as scapegoats. Executed by operators who know their tradecraft and financed through dozens of untraceable cut-outs, it’s one of the finest evil schemes I’ve read about in a while which isn’t just fun but could also be pulled off in real life.

Now for characters. There are two stand-outs. First, Sean Havens, the main protagonist. As the book begins, he’s like a slightly cockier version of the middle aged Mitch Rapp from “The Last Man”. Sean is patriotic but has seen it all and managed to justify the decisions he had made during his career. However, during the course of the book, his character development becomes a whole lot more electrifying and dynamic than anything the bestselling authors ever conceived. Havens is forced to learn how to dance on the moral line, struggling to keep himself in check as his sanity slowly begins to erode due to the campaign conducted by his enemies. This conflict is one of the things which makes him stand-out among the other spies and professional killers created by American thriller writers, while Havens is competent and downright tenacious when he eventually catches on to who his enemies are, he is forced to fight a battle which he’s not equipped for, one involving the gambits and betrayal of a classical spy novel rather than the guns and bombs of a contemporary counter-terrorist thriller.

Next, we have Prescott Drager who I would readily nominate as my “best antagonist of 2014”. He’s the perfect foil to Havens. Where Havens wouldn’t be out of place running around in an explosive counter-terrorist thriller, Drager excels at scheming and plotting in the comfortable halls of America’s Intelligence establishment like a classical spymaster. While he’s a dangerously savvy antagonist who manages to pull off a delicate waltz and put some distance between himself and the main character when things go to hell for his conspiracy, J. T. Patten did something very interesting, adding a sympathetic element to an individual, who for all intents and purposes is a textbook sociopath willing to make a mountain of corpses if it can save his own skin. He suffers from PTSD and at a few points in the book, I briefly felt sorry for the guy. In other books, the villains, whether power mad political busybodies or Islamist terrorist, it’s unfortunately common for them to repeat the moustache twirling archetype without any context to what motivates them. Drager on the other hand, while he certainly isn’t a good man, is more understandable than many other villains in the genre he inhabits, with the author exploring why he’s so screwed up in the head.

Now for some constructive suggestions and criticism. Most spy/military/political thrillers these days use quite a bit more sophisticated jargon than books written in the Cold War era. Hence, a few authors, most notably spy thriller author Stephen England, increasingly like to include a glossary of a few (not all) relevant definitions which explain certain acronyms and nomenclature for the mere mortals like us. I have read many spy thrillers which has allowed me to recognise familiar terms but I think Safe Havens (and any future books) would have been served well with a short list of some of the more obscure terms which cropped up in the book. Next, while I did like the plotting, at times, it did get a tad too complex for its own good and the writing style could have been streamlined just a little bit more. Nevertheless, Mr Patten has clearly demonstrated great potential as a writer and I’m sure he will continue to improve and develop his skills in whatever future books he writes.

So, my verdict on Safe Havens is this. Are you bored of the chest-thumping machismo increasingly common in the spy thriller genre? Looking for a novel where brains not bullets count? J. T. Patten’s first spy thriller has the best of both worlds. While letting the reader peak behind the curtain of America’s Intelligence establishment even more than a Mitch Rapp, novel, it tempers this with a dark, morally ambiguous view of the intelligence establishment. It’s a story about individuals who do good and evil things because they believe they have the right reasons and about those people who do battle on are behalf and do what they can to survive and come home to a safe haven. This is only the first step of a long, walk in the dark for deniable asset Sean Havens. And may there be many more.

TOTALLY RECOMMENDED.
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Jun 22, 2014 Bodo Pfündl rated it it was amazing

Shelves: without-equal

Well, how do you start a review of such an awesome read? First, there were many elements, which set "Shadow Masters" above almost every other book I ever read, but the complex and scaringly realistic scenario, which was heavily crafted by the multi-layered plot, was certainly the most important one of all!

The core of every great story, is of course a protagonist you can identify and feel with. J.T. Patten does in exceptionally fine job in, not only accomplishing that goal, but also setting Sean ...more

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