This is the first Ghost Recon book that I have read. I enjoyed the story. There was enough fiction mixed with real life to make it almost believable. ( )

This was a typical american military men on a mission type thriller. It turned out to be a quick read so was good between longer books. ( )

This book is very good. This is a book for people that like action. The book wes very well written and has a good story line. A good Addition to the Tom Clancy series. ( )

This is my Q4 SSR Book. I have read a total of 316 pages. I have one more chapter to go through.
The protagonist in the book, Ghost Recon, is Scott Michaels, aka Ricochet or Ghost Lead. He is a soldier in the U.S. Army Special Forces team, Ghost Recon. Throughout the book he moves up the ranks helping his closest friend Tutang, which he rescued at the beginning.
In the beginning of this book Scott's squad is being ambushed, with him being the only mobile person. He radios the Filipino squad for help and after receiving no response, he assumes they are dead, however they are not. When a chopper arrives he sees Fang, the leader of the Filipino squad is perfectly fine, the battle then begins. Later on when Scott is fighting in World War III, he finds out that Fang is behind it all. ( )

I’ve never read a Tom Clancy novel, or even a Tom Clancy’s novel. They just didn’t look like my thing. I did enjoy the Ghost Recon game though. Enough to take a gamble on a novel based on the franchise.

Though the book is based on Mr. Clancy’s Ghost Recon game franchise, the story is entirely new. We begin with a long prologue following our hero Scott Mitchell prior to joining the Ghosts. On a covert joint operation in the jungles of the Philippines, American forces are ambushed. The heroism of one man saves the day and that man is recruited for the most special of the Special Forces, The Ghosts.

This leads to a secret mission into mainland China to prevent something referred to as Pouncing Dragon, which could trigger world war III.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It is quite well done for the most part. I was glued to the pages. One of those books where I would be annoyed when I had to quit reading, telling myself ‘just one more chapter’. The combat scenes are very well written. Tense and gripping and they will keep you turning the pages.

The non-combat, personal time stuff and characterization is not nearly as well written. Some of it is even clumsy. Diaz, the female sniper, joined the military to prove she could do anything as well as a man. Really? It came off as sexist and insulting to the writer’s own character.

The other characters were also pretty two dimensional. I appreciate the token attempt to flesh out the Ghosts I guess, though perhaps summing up their background as dossiers would have worked just as well and maybe been less clumsy.

Luckily, the bulk of the novel is made up of that well written tension, action and combat and as such it was a thrilling read.

I have to say, even though the action was very well written, towards the end it felt like the writer was really piling it on. All sorts of stuff that was never mentioned before shows up and the last fifty pages or so become an extended battle. Since the main plot points have been wrapped up by this time, the last slog really felt tacked on to me.

I’ll keep picking up the series (I’m assuming it will be one) so long as they keep them to this caliber. It wasn't perfect, but it was fun. ( )