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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Black Ops by W.E.B Griffin eBook edition

Henri shares his latest reading experience.

I’ve been on a reading binge and filling my spare time with books that stir up emotions around the themes of war, heroism, and patriotism.  The latest is Black Ops by W.E.B. Griffin.  He has been an author of note for nearly as long as I have been reading.

Griffin entered the military in 1946 and combines his experience with his considerable talent to draw plots and characters that compel you to keep reading.

Griffin’s main character is a blend of virtues and vices that compel me to like him. He is the son of two wealthy families who was raised in Europe and Texas. He has language skills and other capacities that made him stand out in the military roles he played but now he has become a Special Ops Warrior. How Griffin makes all of this work is a mystery to me but it works marvelously.

With Griffin you always feel like you have a seat at the big table and are watching significant events unfold. Black Ops is no exception. I bought it immediately and read it in two sessions separated only by family obligations. As usual it left me hungry for the next novel in the series.

I really enjoy reading novels that explore human values and the strengths and weaknesses of various social and political approaches to life. They do have to ring true in my ear past the fact that they are obviously only works of fantasy. Griffin’s latest book does ring true.

It comes down to something as simple as this, I read fiction to be entertained and if I am happy I chose that book at the end that is all I can ask of any author.

Black Ops delivers.

Here is the publishers take:

The Russian bear is stirring and its hungry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series thrilling fifth novel.The first disturbing reports reached Delta Force Lieutenant Colonel Charley Castillo in the form of backchannel messages concerning covert U.S. intelligence assets working for a variety of agencies suddenly gone missing and then, suddenly, inexplicably, found dying. Or dead. One in Budapest, Hungary. One in Kiev, Ukraine. One in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, mere klicks from the Iran border. And then one in Virginia, along the Potomac River, practically in the shadow of CIA headquarters.Castillo finds the information both infuriating and fascinating, particularly after a recent experience with two CIA traitors whose own deaths were swift and suspicious.

Despite there being some similarities, though, he thinks there's something different with these new cases, something he can't quite put his finger on. At first, its an idle thought, but Castillo expects it's only a matter of time before the commander in chief assigns him and his group of troubleshooters in the innocuously named Office of Organizational Analysis to look into the deaths while all those intel agencies fight among themselves trying to put the pieces together.

Meanwhile, Castillo has problems of his own; fallout from recent missions involving a clandestine rescue of a DEA agent from South American drug runners, and the confiscation of some fifty million dollars from thieves in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal. He's made more than a few enemies, he knows both foreign and domestic. And then comes another back-channel message, this one delivered personally by his lethal friend, the Russian mobster arms dealer. All that has happened so far, he says, is just a warm-up for what's about to come out of the Kremlin.

Could sabers be rattling for a new Cold War? Or worse? Presidential Agent C. G. Castillo is about to find out. . . .

Filled with Griffin's trademark rich characters and cutting-edge drama, this is another exceptional novel in an exceptional series.

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