On Target by Mark Greaney

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

‘On Target’ is a terrific adventure. So many books have a formalized plot. I charged into this book thinking I would travel a somewhat similar trail. Author Greaney takes his hero and hurls him into one mess after the other. Soon the original mission of the hero transforms into various levels of excitement and viewpoints and the ending becomes mysterious at each page turn.

The writing is very good. The characters are very well described and explained.

When the girl character appeared, I figured she was dropped in as love interest. She’s more than that. Though, she could have just as well be a boy. In that sense the woman character felt forced.

The other issue is my typical cry of a contemporary novel that could have had 50 less pages or so. It helps that Greaney has a compelling story to better carry the reader through extraneous text.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 8 of 10 points.

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Black Site by Dalton Fury
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

‘Black Site’ strives to cover every aspect of the military mission(s) that the main character endeavors upon and does so impressively. Seems little there is left out, despite the knowledge that not all can be revealed without veering into the reality of American military operations that the author claims to know. Despite the complexity of all that happens int the book, it is written in a clear fashion making so much easier to digest.

This is still another entry in the overflowing literary area of espionage by former military-turned authors. This one is much like the others, especially the recent variety that deal with middle east issues. In fact, the writing is much like many of them.Possible too many of them. Turns out Mark Greaney was involved with writing this. Greaney is also writing his own series along with continuing Clancy’s Jack Ryan series. Is Greaney also writing this series? It’s known that Dalton Fury is a pen name and this book reminds me of Greaney’s The Gray Man.

However, ‘Black Site’ reminds me of many of the other new espionage novels being spit out today. All written well and full of action. I’m not finding a real writing style in the majority of these books. So many read as if all were written by the same person. If not for different publishers, I’d wonder if this genre wasn’t the opposite of the William Johnstone Clan set of books all being handled by ghost writers. In this case are many being handle by a few writers using different names and lots of assistants? I’ll stop these ponderings.

Despite all the above, this is a very good book, though it also lacks style. Very readable, exciting and well worth the expense.

Bottom line: I recommend this book.

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The Gray Man by Mark Greaney

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

‘The Gray Man’ by Mark Mark Greaney is very well written, though the plotting leaves a lot to be desired. It’s basically a chase book. I found it like a Matthew Reilly book, but better written.

The hero is well defined as are many of the supporting characters. I wish there was more about the bad guys. I kept expecting a bit more of a plot to be revealed as reasoning for keeping them loosely drawn. Locations are very well written. The author has an opening acknowledgement pages telling of his travels to help make locations read as real. The main plot has many holes in it as a big business seems to have about anything it wants with a couple phone calls. Even in big business there is bureaucracy and the easy summons of whatever from around the world is a bit much.

A big plus is how well author Greaney gets his hero hurt along the way. It’s hard not to wince at parts where the hero gets injured. The hero is not invulnerable. A chunk of the book has an aside through the eyes of one of the characters who has a sibling. I found it interesting that the way this is handled had me wonder if the other sibling was imaginary as each is treated autonomously.

One thing kept crossing my mind as I read: This book would have been better set in the American west in the 1800s. Nevertheless, it is a thriller, fun and worth reading if you like lots of action and a very good chase.

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