Special Ops – The Brotherhood of War

Special Ops – The Brotherhood of War – W.E.B. Griffin

The ninth installment of ‘The Brotherhood of War’ series. Let’s hope it’s the last.  To be blunt (and unkind), I actually wish this one had never been written. This one was a chore to get through and paled in comparison to its predecessors. 

As I recall, Griffin intended to finish this series a few books ago, or at least that’s what I thought when he included a ‘Where are they now?’ coda at the end of one of these installments. Apparently, though, he had more story to tell, so the books kept coming. This was the only one of the series that I give a ‘thumbs down’ to upon reflection. Why? Several reasons.  The main reason, however, is that I might just be tired of the series. There’s only so much you can read about the same group of people without feeling that enough is enough.  A good analogy, for me at least, are the ‘Star Wars’ movies. No matter how well done the last couple of movies have been, I couldn’t help the feeling that I had seen all of it before.  The same is true with these books.

Another factor is the length. This book is 780 pages in the paperback edition. Oy.  On average, the other books were about 425-450 pages.  The fact that this book was almost double in length wouldn’t be a hindrance if there had been a good story that needed more pages, but sadly, this isn’t the case.  This was the most drawn out inconsequential plot of the whole series.  I must confess, though, that once I got about 500 pages into it, I basically mentally checked out.  In fact, I MADE myself read at least 10 pages of this book each day so I could eventually finish it. A wiser person would have simply put the book down. I wish I had such discipline.

As I’ve stated in my reviews of the other Brotherhood of War books (I’ve reviewed all on Amazon), these books don’t focus too much on the battlefield, yet give the reader a keen insight of the life of a soldier. We read of the politics, the friendships, the marriages – all through a soldier’s eyes. I would argue that a lot doesn’t happen in these books action-wise, but they’ve all been quite good. Until this one that is.  

This book does have a plot, yet it’s incredibly thin and drab. It’s 1965, and Cuban Communist Guerilla leader Che Guevara is planning to go to the Belgian Congo to start an uprising in the unstable region in the hopes of bringing about a communist coup. When the American Intelligence uncovers this fact, a band of mercenaries is trained to be deployed to the jungle to stop him.  Not ‘kill’ him, mind you, just ‘stop’ him.  Killing him will have the opposite effect. He’ll die a martyr and will probably inspire communists to turn the notch up for their cause. So about 500 pages of this book is devoted to the training, deployment, and action towards this goal. 

The story was just too boring and lost my interest.  If you’re an OCD ‘completist’ such as I am, this book would probably be deemed ‘necessary’ for you, just so you can check it off a box and rest easily knowing that you’ve finished the series.  For everyone else, I recommend skipping this one – even if you’ve enjoyed the rest of the books up to this point.

Such a fact makes me wish I didn’t suffer from OCD.