Ralph Peters (1) (1952–)

La joven Kelly Trost hija de un importante senador norteamericano viaja al Asia Central en sus vacaciones para ayudar en tareas humanitarias. Su rastro se desvanece en el oscuro corazón de un país sin ley, sumido en el caos luego del colapso de la Unión Soviética. Nadie sabe de quién es prisionera. Ni siquiera se sabe si está viva. Solo el teniente coronel Burton tiene el conocimiento del terreno necesario para buscarla . La misión, difícil y brutal, se desarrolla entre gángsters, fanáticos religiosos, señores de la guerra, ejecutivos petroleros, generales rebeldes y espías extranjeros. La inocente vida de Kelly se ha convertido en moneda de cambio de un frío y despiadado juego global.… (mehr)

Welshman Abel Jones, a veteran of the British Army’s mid-19th century Indian wars, had put his military past behind him when he married his childhood sweetheart and settled in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. The outbreak of the Civil War in his newly-adopted country has Jones volunteering in Union blue to lend his military experience to raw recruits. A crippling injury in the Battle of Bull Run lands Jones in an administrative role, keeping accounts and procuring uniforms for the army. When a popular young abolitionist captain is murdered outside a Union camp, rumors fly that the Confederates are behind it. With evidence pointing toward the young man’s Union comrades as possible culprits, Jones is tasked with investigating the death and finding the truth before events spin out of control.

Author Parry successfully creates an authentic-feeling Civil War atmosphere from start to finish. Captain Jones possess admirable qualities, including a strong sense of justice and duty, and his love for his wife and infant son. However, he expresses strong prejudices against the Irish and other ethnic groups who hadn’t yet “melted” into the American pot, and he occasionally uses racial slurs that are as offensive today as they were to their 19th-century targets. The mystery plot would have benefited from the same attention to detail as the setting and characters received. Jones did not conduct a methodical investigation, and his first-person account of his search for the murderer suffered as a result.… (mehr)

Interesting scenario in novel form about a "post-cold-war" massive conflict; a potential future (although maybe not the most likely). Essentially, Islamist terrorism going nuclear, Europe going fascist, and the US split between religious expeditionary warfare and those maintaining civic nationalist institutions like the Army and USMC. In some areas the book is a bit heavy-handed, but it's at least interesting.

Any military scenario where the US military isn't far-and-away more powerful than any adversary requires a lot of leaps fancy, and I don't know if "US becomes a theocracy" is anywhere near the most plausible, but from that assumption, it's a decent scenario and story after that.… (mehr)