Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book was bad for a number of different reasons. 1. The main character, Jack Noble, continually mouths off to his superior officers, MPs, interrogators, and many others. That in and of itself is not a bad thing, but the things he's saying are immature. I just have trouble believing that a highly trained Marine and CIA operative would stoop to such a level. 2. This book is attempting to be a realistic military book with regards to weapons and tactics. In the beginning, it even goes so far as to point out that they are using M-16 A3s instead of A4s. However, when this is stated, the author writes that the M-16 A3 has several different fire modes including semi-automatic and single shot. Now, this can be taken two ways. Either the author is saying that there is a fire mode on the M-16 that requires the charging handle to be pulled back for each shot (there isn't), or he is using two different names for the same function (Semi-automatic). If this were done at different places in the book, it wouldn't be an issue, but here it's within a few words. That is just shoddy writing! This one stuck out to me because it is just a few pages into the book. The author is making an error while shoving how "real" this book is in our faces. 3. Jack Noble is released from prison, despite the fact that he is being accused of murder, assaults several people while in the prison, and gets into a fight with two MPs. I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that any CO on the planet could get a man released from prison after that. 4. We are asked to accept things that we are never told. By this I mean we are asked to assume that things have happened without seeing them happen. For instance, in one scene we are told that Jack draws his pistol. Now, out of context that seems fine -- but he draws the pistol when he should not have one in the first place! He has just been on a commercial flight and been in military prison. While it is stated that he is given a bag of weapons, we are never told that he opened the bag and are just asked to assume that he just has a pistol for some reason. It seems like lazy writing to me. 5. The plot makes little sense. Why would the government need to frame two marines for a murder, when it is explicitly stated that they could easily kill the Marines themselves and get away with it? Why would they be able to kill two Marines (who have a lot more documentation as to their whereabouts than the actual victims), but not be able to murder a random Iraqi family without repercussions? 6. The sentence structure is choppy and disjointed. Overall, this style is very hard to read. I didn't even finish the book. It just wasn't worth the effort.