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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
NOOOOPPPPPEEE!!! Hard pass and moving on. I’m DNFing this guy at 8% because those 2 hours of listening time that I’ll never get back were painful. Mr. Clancy I gave you the good old college try, but at least now I know why you’re so popular with the guys.... guns, violence, boats, boobs, military things, drugs.... I mean I could go on and that was on 2 hours out of 27. No rating because I couldn’t give up on it fast enough. I swerved and tried something new, but it’s so far off the mark that I gave myself whiplash getting back into my lane.
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Fragile Masculinity series, #1. Total nonsense right-wing wish-fulfillment.
Opens with retired SEAL John Kelley picks up a young girl hitchhiking, and takes her to his private island to have sex with her. On the way he discovers he's over grieving for his dead wife and ready to love again, and this might be the girl he marries. Somewhere after they get to his boat he remembers to ask her name. Sometime after they get to his island he realises she's been off her head on painkillers the entire time, is fleeing for her life from sex traffickers - apparently they have the kind of deep soulmate bond that means someone murdering her would be motivating for him, but not so deep that he notices her being in mortal terror the entire time. Also not so deep that he doesn't fall in love with another woman during his revenge murder spree.
Meanwhile, the Vietnam war's going on, and Kelley gets called up to plan a Special Forces mission to rescue some PoWs. The KGB are involved, and naturally everyone is incredibly racist about the Vietnamese, while pot-smoking peaceniks and self-important politicians undermine the fine efforts of The Troops.
It's fun enough, lots of action and interesting technical asides, and I quite liked the way massive op-sec failures advance the plot (one great moment is after Kelley spending half the book preparing untraceable murders, one of the cops looks at the file and says "well, it's clearly someone who knows what they're doing ... hey look, there's a former SEAL in the case notes, it's obviously him"). A lot of the threads don't really get tied up, which makes me feel like TC had planned to say more then ditched it in a hurry. One thing that really bugged me is ... as things unravel, Kelley is about to get discovered by the police and tells his CIA handlers that he's literally a serial killer, he's carrying out an ongoing revenge murder spree, and they just kinda accept it as if that doesn't affect his security clearance at all? I'm not sure if that was just lazy writing or if this was a political message TC wanted to send.
Opens with retired SEAL John Kelley picks up a young girl hitchhiking, and takes her to his private island to have sex with her. On the way he discovers he's over grieving for his dead wife and ready to love again, and this might be the girl he marries. Somewhere after they get to his boat he remembers to ask her name. Sometime after they get to his island he realises she's been off her head on painkillers the entire time, is fleeing for her life from sex traffickers - apparently they have the kind of deep soulmate bond that means someone murdering her would be motivating for him, but not so deep that he notices her being in mortal terror the entire time. Also not so deep that he doesn't fall in love with another woman during his revenge murder spree.
Meanwhile, the Vietnam war's going on, and Kelley gets called up to plan a Special Forces mission to rescue some PoWs. The KGB are involved, and naturally everyone is incredibly racist about the Vietnamese, while pot-smoking peaceniks and self-important politicians undermine the fine efforts of The Troops.
It's fun enough, lots of action and interesting technical asides, and I quite liked the way massive op-sec failures advance the plot (one great moment is after Kelley spending half the book preparing untraceable murders, one of the cops looks at the file and says "well, it's clearly someone who knows what they're doing ... hey look, there's a former SEAL in the case notes, it's obviously him"). A lot of the threads don't really get tied up, which makes me feel like TC had planned to say more then ditched it in a hurry. One thing that really bugged me is ... as things unravel, Kelley is about to get discovered by the police and tells his CIA handlers that he's literally a serial killer, he's carrying out an ongoing revenge murder spree, and they just kinda accept it as if that doesn't affect his security clearance at all? I'm not sure if that was just lazy writing or if this was a political message TC wanted to send.
A Break-Neck read! In the beginning, I didn't care much for the quick jumping around between characters. I felt as soon as I was introduced to a character I had to jump to another scene and after a few jumps, I had to remember who a couple people were. But the depth of this novel is fantastic! I felt like I was in a movie the entire time. Tom Clancy is a man that knows his stuff. The only minor disappointment, and I really mean minor, is the epilogue. I don't want to give anything away, but I just wish that it were a few pages longer. It felt like the ending was such a terrific chase and then the epilogue was just thrown in and rushed too quickly.