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A review by eftucker11
The Dogs of War by Frederick Forsyth
2.0
While the beginning of this book interested me and drew me in, I found the story to be prolonged, and many aspects of it unnecessary. There are subplots that turn out to be completely irrelevant, most of the book follows the main character setting up the logistics of an operation, without much plot development to make such a thing interesting. The entire book builds up to a climax that is about ten pages long, and the ending makes about as much sense as a football bat.
While Forsyth is able to write in a way that is methodical and concise, he falls prey to the same literary sickness that many authors of this genre suffer from, over-explanation. There were entire pages that-after reading-I realized I could have skipped, without missing any important details. Forsyth goes into depth about some things, while other, more important aspects of the story are left by the wayside.
On top of all of this, the main character is a drab tapestry with about as much appeal as blank rock face. While the character of Cat Shannon clearly knows his way around the business he is in, and that intelligence does make him interesting to follow, there is nothing about him that made me want him to succeed. In fact, many parts of the story left me convinced that Shannon is a morally reprehensible figure, who goes through the world manipulating and destroying things in the name of his own gain. Forsyth tries to sell him as a rough-and-tumble anti-authoritarian who would rather spend his time crawling through the jungles of Africa than in the cities of Europe, and yet the entirety of the book, with the exception of the last fifty pages or so, takes place in those cities. The other mercenaries that Shannon works with have their own little quirks, but nothing that made me understood the bond that the book kept insisting that they shared. Forsyth frequently identifies the mercenaries by their nationalities, since that is pretty much the only unique trait about them, other than the fact that one is old, one is buff, and one is obsessed with his knife.
I would not recommend this book to anyone. While the promotional materials makes it seem like a thriller with plot twists and action and intrigue, it is a deception. This book is a boring tale of banking, logistics, and meetings, with a bit of sex between our 33 year old hero and a 19 year old girl to add in the precisely wrong level of creepiness (Spoiler: That relationship also becomes physically abusive). The action that one would expect from a book with the word "War" in the title is virtually nonexistent. While I did not find it impossible to keep reading as I have with other books, I am still not glad that I read it; and I would not cite it as an example of anything other than an author demonstrating the knowledge he acquired over a very respectable career in journalism, and disguising it as a novel.
While Forsyth is able to write in a way that is methodical and concise, he falls prey to the same literary sickness that many authors of this genre suffer from, over-explanation. There were entire pages that-after reading-I realized I could have skipped, without missing any important details. Forsyth goes into depth about some things, while other, more important aspects of the story are left by the wayside.
On top of all of this, the main character is a drab tapestry with about as much appeal as blank rock face. While the character of Cat Shannon clearly knows his way around the business he is in, and that intelligence does make him interesting to follow, there is nothing about him that made me want him to succeed. In fact, many parts of the story left me convinced that Shannon is a morally reprehensible figure, who goes through the world manipulating and destroying things in the name of his own gain. Forsyth tries to sell him as a rough-and-tumble anti-authoritarian who would rather spend his time crawling through the jungles of Africa than in the cities of Europe, and yet the entirety of the book, with the exception of the last fifty pages or so, takes place in those cities. The other mercenaries that Shannon works with have their own little quirks, but nothing that made me understood the bond that the book kept insisting that they shared. Forsyth frequently identifies the mercenaries by their nationalities, since that is pretty much the only unique trait about them, other than the fact that one is old, one is buff, and one is obsessed with his knife.
I would not recommend this book to anyone. While the promotional materials makes it seem like a thriller with plot twists and action and intrigue, it is a deception. This book is a boring tale of banking, logistics, and meetings, with a bit of sex between our 33 year old hero and a 19 year old girl to add in the precisely wrong level of creepiness (Spoiler: That relationship also becomes physically abusive). The action that one would expect from a book with the word "War" in the title is virtually nonexistent. While I did not find it impossible to keep reading as I have with other books, I am still not glad that I read it; and I would not cite it as an example of anything other than an author demonstrating the knowledge he acquired over a very respectable career in journalism, and disguising it as a novel.