Review: great read
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 21, 2011
I enjoyed the story. As some other reviewers noted, there are a fair number of editing mistakes. But, not so many that they ruined the story for me. Just minor annoyances here and there. There are some oddly placed hyphens here and there, including line break hyphens in the middle of the words "writte-n" and "bri-ef" on the copyright page. I am guessing these are artifacts from some kind of conversion program.This is book 2 of the Black Ops series. It focuses on John Gant, brother of Anthony Gant who died in book 1 from cancer. The first book focused on Neeley, Anthony Gant's lover and student, and Hannah, wife of a former cellar operative as they try to protect themselves from assassins as they run around trying to solve a mystery.Hannah (believe it or not) has taken over as the new head of "The Cellar", kind of a star chamber for covert ops types. It really stretches the imagination that someone with no experience would be chosen for such a role. But Hannah is very much a bit player in this volume, so the reader does not have to dwell on that a whole lot, probably a good choice by the author. No amount of logic can make that choice reasonable. Better not to waste a lot of time trying.This volume is about John Gant's efforts to investigate some mysterious crimes with the help of a psychologist who has been studying special ops soldiers and profiling them in an attempt to improve selection means. Eventually he finds that some special ops soldiers thought long dead are behind the crimes. Later he finds the crimes extend up the food chain and has to deal with that problem as well.Like the first book, you really just have to suspend belief to enjoy the story. If you want it to be Clancy-like and have everything be plausible, you will be disappointed. Very little of what goes on in this book is plausible. But once again, the author writes well enough that the implausible becomes interesting instead of an ongoing and nagging distraction to the story.I would have given it 5 stars if it was more plausible in spots. Some of the super human feats of any number of characters started to annoy me just a little. But, I still enjoyed the book. Think of it as a fairy tale with guns.