Tag Archives: Book review

23/Jan/2013 · 20:00

Book Review: Task Force Desperate

I just finished reading Task Force Desperate last night and thoroughly enjoyed the book! As a combat veteran myself I could immediately relate to the scenes that Peter Nealen paints in his book about Private Military Contractors in a not-so-distant future where the US economy is in shambles and mercenaries are the go-to option for resolving an international crisis. You can relate to the details in this book, the smell of gun smoke hanging in the air, the taste of sweat running down your face, even things like how much it hurts to pull security on a perimeter while down on a knee for long periods of time. Peter served in Recon and in Force Recon so he knows what it is like to hump a ruck and does a great job at bringing the reader inside this world.

TFD involves a small group of military contractors who are hired by the CIA to locate American hostages in the wake of an attack on a US military facility in North Africa by jihadists. Amazingly, Peter predicted the future in some ways as he wrote all this well before the events of 9/11/12 in Benghazi, Libya. Our heroes are called in to locate the hostages so that JSOC can come in and stage a rescue but in a time where the US dollar has collapsed and the military is severely under funded, they end up doing most of the heavy lifting themselves. The fact that the CIA and the State Dept. have their heads up their fourth point of contact doesn’t help matters.

Peter throws a lot of balls in the air in this book and the contractors have their work cut out for them as they tear through Djibouti, Somalia, and Yemen. Another area where Peter really excels is in his geo-political research of the Horn of Africa region. A lot of authors can’t hack this kind of thing and end up writing some silly partisan type analysis of international politics but Peter manages to avoid all that and come up with an accurate and interesting portrayal of a future that hasn’t quite happened just yet.

Highly recommended for fans of the new wave of military fiction coming from GWOT veterans!

19 Comments

Filed under Action Adventure, Military Fiction

Tagged as Book review, Force Recon, Marines, Military Fiction, novel, peter nealen, Task Force Desperate, thriller, writing

11/Aug/2012 · 23:20

Book Review: Classified Woman, The Sibel Edmonds Story

As someone who has worked extensively with translators overseas, I know how important their role is and how critical they are to the mission. When I read Sibel Edmonds’ story I was shocked but not necessarily surprised. I wasn’t surprised at the lack of professionalism that she witnessed among the staff of translators at the FBI’s counter-intelligence office, but I was shocked at how over the top, brazen, and corrupt it was. One of my Arabic teachers at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School told us that he carried a book full of the names of Palestinian martyrs so I didn’t think I was naive about this subject. He would get a kick out of showing us Special Forces students propaganda clips from Memri TV of a Rabbi making Matzo ball soap with the blood of a young Christian boy.

Sibel Edmonds was a naturalized US citizen who got a call shortly after 9/11 to come work at the FBI and help them translate documents and catch up on their backlog, hopefully to turn up clues that would help unravel the plot behind the attacks. We don’t know for sure what language Sibel was translating into English, the title of her book isn’t just a gimmick. The courts have ruled that where she was born, when she was born, and the languages she is fluent in are all classified as state secrets. Government officials have said she is the most Classified Woman in US history. However, we can surmise that Sibel is fluent in Turkish and probably Farsi as well having grown up in Turkey and Iran.

While simultaneously working towards a college degree, Sibel begins working as a translator at the FBI `s counter-intelligence office. Her hard work is quickly recognized and she gets picked up for multiple field assignments, helping exhausted FBI agents in their investigations in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

It is back at the FBI headquarters building in Washington, DC that she begins to realize that something is amiss. Classified documents are mishandled, some translators are not qualified and can barely speak English, and documents of critical importance are non-nonchalantly being stamped as being not relevant to FBI investigations.

It gets much worse when a co-worker and her husband (a Major at the Pentagon) come to visit Sibel and her husband Matthew at their home. They then proceed to “pitch” them. They want Sibel to join several Turkish-American Associations. These are the same organizations that Sibel and her co-worker are targeting everyday at their job as translators for FBI counter-intelligence. The FBI has been investigating a dangerous group that is involved in drug trafficking and nuclear espionage with connections to Israel and worse connections to US politicians on both sides of the aisle.

It sounds very much like the plot of a dime store novel, but these are events that bring down the whole house of cards for Sibel, as they would for any honest American. A criminal network has penetrated the FBI and is actively sabotaging investigations that could threaten their operations.

Read the rest at SOFREP.com

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Filed under News, Reviews, Writing

Tagged as Book review, counter-intelligence, national security, sibel edmonds, whistleblower

15/Jul/2012 · 15:23

A critique of The Command by Ambinder and Grady

At SOFREP we make a concerted effort to get the best and most accurate information about the Special Operations community to our readers. Careful considerations are given to Operational Security as we have no interest in compromising operations or endangering soldier’s lives, so balancing these two can be tricky at times. We also engage in some watchdog operations when we see the media just blatantly getting it wrong.

Recently we called out the Durango Herald for a laughably bad piece about an alleged Delta Force Soldier who could have been outed with just a little fact checking. In the case of The Command there isn’t a need to call anyone out. Marc Ambinder and D.B. Grady make a serious effort to dig through the layers of classification that deliberately obscure the highly sensitive activities of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which is the umbrella under which Delta Force and SEAL Team Six exist.

In doing this they turn up some amazing information on previously undisclosed operations and activities, however, they also slip up more than once. This critique is intended as professional, rather than personal criticism but it is needed criticism. Because of OPSEC, not every incorrect statement made in The Command can be corrected. This may sound like a cop out and maybe it is. It is also certain that the following is not a full critique as the author is not aware of every program and mission mentioned in Ambinder and Grady’s work and can’t comment on it one way or the other.

Some of the mistakes in The Command could be corrected with a careful reading of open source materials such as Mark Bowden’s Killing Pablo. Take for instance the statement that Delta Force was “…in Panama where it allegedly pursued Pablo Escobar.” Pablo Escobar was allegedly pursued by Delta Force in Pablo’s home country of Colombia. However, Delta Force did participate in the 1989 invasion of Panama.

5 Comments

Filed under News, Reviews, Special Forces, Writing

Tagged as Ambinder, Book review, Delta Force, Grady, JSOC, SEAL Team Six, The Command

26/Feb/2012 · 15:30

Book Review: Black Site by Dalton Fury

Black Site: A Delta Force novel

I had been looking forward to reading Dalton Fury’s first novel, Black Site, since it was first announced because I knew as a former Army Special Operations guy, and a writer of military fiction myself, that someone with Fury’s background was set up for a grand slam. There are a lot of writers in this genre and some of them are very good, but I find that most of them just don’t understand SOF. I’m not just talking about the technical details, but they don’t get the mentality or the attitude. This was where Fury’s book really comes through for readers.

2 Comments

Filed under Military Fiction, News

Tagged as Book review, Dalton Fury, Delta Force

22/Aug/2011 · 20:52

Eight 5-star reviews for Reflexive Fire

Yes, I’m bragging again. I’m just very flattered to see that my novel is connecting with people!

“A military novel, written by a true expert on the subject, just takes the story to another, higher level, compared to books made up by “civilian” authors with vivid imaginations. Reflexive Fire is written by a true and unquestionable military expert; Jack Murphy, an eight year U.S. Army Special Operations veteran, and this fact adds incomparable credibility and accuracy to the story, and to the important, and often neglected, details. I have served in the military for over 15 years, yet, by reading Reflexive Fire, I have actually picked up some new skills from the author Jack Murphy; e.g. how to cut time when reloading a AK 47 etc. It is however easy to miss all the grains of gold, because of the intriguing and cunning story, it does take a lot of will power to put the book down.

I highly recommend this book to both experts and amateurs.

Frank C. Jones “

1 Comment

Filed under Military Fiction

Tagged as Book review, reflexive fire

29/Jul/2011 · 13:58

Reflexive Fire gets PRIMAL!

Jack Silkstone, the author of the Primal series, just posted a very favorable review of Reflexive Fire. Check it out:

“Jack Murphy’s book Reflexive Fire caught my attention immediately. Author with a SOF background, check. Rogue operatives with a solid set of morals, check. He even has the same first name as me, legend. I had to give it a read and I sure as shit wasn’t disappointed.”

Read the rest on the Primal website.

Book Review: The Maverick Experiment

This novel details what is essentially a pilot program run by select members of the CIA. The first Maverick Team is composed of former Special Forces operatives led by a intelligence contractor, Derek, who worked tactical intelligence for Tier-One Special Operations units, giving him the boots on the ground experience needed to lead such a team.

Derek’s team is under the radar and off the books, funded by the black budget and outfitted to be completely deniable. The author’s background in intelligence gathering brings a large degree of authenticity to this work. Having served eight years in Army Special Operations myself I didn’t find any goof ups or gaffes that lesser writers often fall into.

That said, I would question the tactical validity of some of the actions taken by the Maverick Team. For instance, why infiltrate via HALO into Pakistan’s lawless tribal area when the team’s primary Area of Operations is in Afghanistan? There are plenty of drop zones in Afghanistan, and one would need to be established near by for resupply anyhow.

I suppose this is where I have some mixed feelings about The Maverick Experiment. As a novel, I give it five-stars, no questions asked. As a non-fiction field guide I would disagree with much of it. I only mention this because we live in an era where our political leaders quote Jason Borne and Jack Bauer as if they are real people. There is no indication that the author has a similar disconnect between fiction and reality, but I would hate to see people read this book and think that this sort of thing is actually a good idea.

While off-the-books covert action teams are needed, and I completely agree with the author’s assessment that risk aversion is destroying our defense capability, the Maverick Team has an absolute license to kill and maim anyone in their way, to including innocent civilians. As a soldier I was often upset with political correctness, however, I never saw the rules against murder to be prohibitive to us accomplishing our job. There is a lot of middle ground between say, the Rules of Engagement levied on Europeans fighting in Afghanistan, and the kind of “weapons hot” attitude of the Maverick Team.

But as stated above, as a work of fiction, The Maverick Experiment stands out in this genre. The action is authentic and original, including assassinations and a pretty cool jail break from an Afghani prison. The characters could have been a little more fleshed out, but I think that this book is intended to be the first in a series, so perhaps we will learn more about them in the sequel.

If you are looking for a Special Operations or espionage thriller that is a cut above the rest. I’d recommend this work to people who are looking for something with a harder edge. The Maverick Experiment is gritty, hardcore, and brutal. Not for the feeble or weak hearted as they say.

16 Comments

Filed under Action Adventure, Afghanistan, Reviews

Tagged as black ops, Book review, CIA, covert operations, The Maverick Experiment