San Diego Bob

This one's a truly dark tale, with the 'bad guys' being homegrown Americans who are, for the most part, sympathetic in terms of their points of view being understandable. I espeically felt sympathy for the Gulf War vet who came across as much a victim as a villian. I almost wanted to see him somehow get off the hook for what he did, and the way his part of the story ends really made me sad. Same goes for the sniper character who worked at the fantasy camp. Of course, there was also the evil Senator who was so diabolical you loved rooting against him. The plot about superpatriots turning on their own country is totally credible and the action scenes, from the opening mayhem at the fantasy ops camp to the final chase sequence, all have a 'you are there' feeling about them that kept me turning the pages right, which is really what these books are supposed to be about, right? I read this right after seeing the move 'Departed' and it has that same multi-layered storytelling with a lot of twists. I'd also just read an early Pendleton Executioner novel and although there were some differences in the writing, I think the writer here captured Pendleton's vision and in some cases even topped the master when it came to creating characters and having realistic dialogue. Excellent!

After reading a lot recent so-so books in this series, I went back to the master and totally dug Pendleton's work here. Nice pacing, crisp writing, and a lot of trademark action. As a Vietnam vet I especially related to the parts in the story dealing with all the turmoil and protest surrounding the Vietnam war. This one's probably hard to find but well worth the effort.