The Death Trust (Vin Cooper, #1) in SSG: Spy/Spec-Ops Group

Dec 13, 2014 Asterope rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, g_thriller_spy-political-military, g_action-adventure, x_captive-slave-hostage-etc, heroes-i-like-and-love, pov-lead_male, x_disability_mental-neuro-emotional, g_thriller_crime-legal-mystery, x_politician, u_soldier-marine-etc_active-veteran

Not bad. For the most part, I enjoyed the story and the main characters.

There were only two things that rubbed me the wrong way. Vin Cooper and his interactions with Varvara and Katarinya. Though each for different reasons.
(view spoiler) Not bad. For the most part, I enjoyed the story and the main characters.

There were only two things that rubbed me the wrong way. Vin Cooper and his interactions with Varvara and Katarinya. Though each for different reasons.
(view spoiler)[
1. Varvara. I couldn't help but pause at the TSTL moment Vin had when Varvara came to seduce him in his hotel. Here's a woman that was at the least a stripper and at the most a prostitute/sex slave - and it's not like women in that position can demand their clients use condoms. He knew this. In fact, much of it was revealed pre-sex. Yet, this man, who I took to be pretty smart, had unprotected sex with this woman, who for all he knows, given her past, had who knows what and how many STDs. There is no mention of protection, just "I found my way inside her." I paused after that scene, because it didn't really match my view of the hero. I thought he was smarter than that. And I get that this is fiction, but it's set in the real world, with real life issues and consequences. I don't expect to be hit over the head with safe sex in every book, but I'd hope the hero/ine would practice it when having sex with someone like Varvara, at the least. It could have very easily been worked into the story, with a sentence, that protection was going used. "She ripped open the package and slipped the condom over me before I found my way inside her." - or something like that. See, it's easy!

2. Katarinya. She raped him, basically. He was still high on the sedative he was given, was having an erotic dream (which was a side effect, apparently, of the drug), thinking it was Anna doing the things to him. He thought it was a dream, a fantasy, but it wasn't, not totally. Because Kararinya was under his sheets doing those things, which were then filtered as a dream to his brain (like when you have to pee IRL and like dream of peeing, or whatever). He wakes up, still confused and groggy - he has no clue what's going on. And then this happened:

"A head popped up from under the covers and a warm body climbed on top of me. She straddled me and I entered her involuntarily as her legs wrapped around me and she began to move her hips...This was not what I wanted, or rather, who I wanted. I was completely disoriented. Had everything been a dream?

He threw her off him before any actual sex happened, but that doesn't matter, it's still an issue. In my state, any sort of penetration is considered rape, there doesn't have to be an orgasm or completion of one party.Imagine if it was the opposite. A woman, drugged and out of it, a man doing things to arouse her while she's out of it, and then just as she opens her eyes, he enters her. People would say that's rape - because it is! He was raped, IMO. And again, sexual contact with sex workers and no-condom. Risky, risky business, though in this case, unlike with Varvara, it wasn't his fault. I don't like that it was treated so casually, this assault, because that's what I really is. He was drugged, unable to consent. Hell, he even, in narrative made it very clear he didn't want that to occur and wouldn't have chosen to do that if he was able to choose. So yeah. That didn't please me. It was also rather unnecessary, that whole scene. It could have stood with him dream/fantasizing that it was Anna and leave it at that. The whole scene with Katarinya didn't add anything to the plot.
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Feb 21, 2010 Mark rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: police-pi-mystery, military, political-thriller, legal-thriller

A military investigator Vin Cooper looks into the Murder of an Air Force general and his son...Cooper has the cockiness and skills of both Brian Haig's Sean Drummond and DeMille's Paul Brenner...a fun read, but I get a little tired of the Deus Ex Machina plot device of the government/industrial conspiracies of some of these novels...it would have been 4 stars if it wasn't for that ...more

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Mar 02, 2011 Richard rated it really liked it

This book was a pleasant surprise. Many twists and turns and a great ending. I now will read the whole series, Vin Cooper is a hard hitting main character that will carry many more novels in the future. If you like series as I do you could do far worse. I urge you to give David Rollins a chance to win your loyalty as a reader.

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