Very focused on military raids, Iranian hostiles, government coverups it is action packed. The main character Garrett Sinclair is assigned to stop the terrorism, and the recently discovered biochemical weapon. The story takes place mainly in the Middle East, Europe, and the U.S.. A.J. Tata is a good writer, he knows what he writes about but this book didn't really do it for me. If you like military thrillers with a lot of action you should try this one.

Great writing just not my preferred reading.

Thank You to NetGalley, Author Anthony J. Tata, and St. Martin's Press

I had a tough time remembering that Chasing the Lion was fiction.

This story has everything a reader looking for suspense, thrilling situations, and well-written characters could want in a book.

General Garrett Sinclair is a hero we can all root for. He’s searching for truth and justice in a world gone mad. While trying to come to grips with his wife’s death, he also deals with missions to catch and stop the Lion of Tabas from destroying America.

At times the story seemed far-fetched. Unless you follow real-life news, then it’s all too real. Whether it’s the battle for a mind-controlling nerve agent or uncovering treasonous Americans in high places, Sinclair needs his crew to survive and end the threats.

The pacing is breathtaking and intense. Chasing the Lion is not a book to read a chapter or two before bed; plan on binging through the night. Military thrillers are not my usual genre, but I found this one to be riveting.

I received a digital copy of the book from the author or publisher via NetGalley. This review is my honest, unbiased opinion.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. Sorry to say that I did not finish this book. It seems to be well written but has errors of fact that, to a reader with a military background, are hard to get past. Would a Lieutenant General really go on an actual combat operation in Iran? A challenge coin from a military officer of Iran? Hate to think of what else I will come accross later in the book. Very annoying.

Chasing the Lion by AJ Tata

346 Pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: June 1, 2021

Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Terrorism

Terrorist Dariush Parizad, known as the Lion of Tabas, has his sights on America. He has developed a biochemical weapon called Demon Rain. After people are “treated” with the drug, people are triggered and become violent. Lt. General Garrett Sinclair knows Parizad from one of his tours in the Middle East. During the investigations, questions come up when a video is found of Sinclair’s dead wife. Was his wife Melissa really kidnapped while she was at the hospital and did she really die of cancer or something else?

The story was fast paced, the characters were developed, and it was written in the first-person point of view. It was full of action and adventure. I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure where the story was going. If you like action and intrigue, you will enjoy this book.

Chasing the Lion is a classic techno-black ops thriller set in the modern era. It pits a special forces leader, Garrett Sinclair, against a sophisticated Iranian regime bent on bringing the United States to its knees through a multi-pronged attack that includes use of the CIA’s Ultra MK mind-control experiments now turned into a technological mind-control marvel operated by the use of smartphones, the use of Sarin gas, terrorist attacks by sleeper cells, and nuclear powered submarine attacks on American oil refineries. It shows that the attack was developed by longstanding sleeper cells and monies freed by the reinstatement of portions of the JCPOA and an America asleep at the switch and preoccupied with internal strife and political bickering rather than sharp and alert to outside threats.

As with many of these black ops thrillers, Sinclair is isolated throughout much of the story and operates much on his own, never knowing who to trust or who to turn to. Although the beginning of the novel is a bit clunky in its setup and the worldwide crisis at times seems a bit farfetched, the novel does pick up as the action proceeds through the middle of the novel.

This book was full of action from beginning to end. General Garrett Sinclair and his team uncover a chemical weapon that poisons and can possibly mind-control large groups of people. As they chase the terrorist organization that created it, they uncover even larger conspiracies'.

The technology and story seem very current, and the pacing is fast. There are great chases and battles. I'd recommend this to people who enjoy military thrillers.

Note: I both listened to and read this book, depending on my situation at the time. I thought the audio book was very well done.

I enjoyed this book, but the storyline is like so many other thrillers out today: a terrorist threat against the US and our hero with his (because it's never a woman) own personal demons to deal with and they end up saving the world. I wish it was just more original. It was like reading an action movie. Enjoyable but forgettable.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin Press for the advance ARC for my honest review.

Did like it although, there were some parts during my read that I found it unbelievable or plausible at times but the writing, escaping into the pages, the fast pace, mix in the tension, the suspense, the overload of action, good versus evil, builds to a great conclusion and glad that I read this one.

With 'Chasing the Lion', you get a multi-layered storyline, the author A.J. Tata kept them all straight but check reality at the door Right away you will notice how Tata has brought the vast knowledge and personal experience he has into this book. As a retired General he knows better than most the inside workings of combat and military strategy and that brings this story a level of realism in the details that will keep readers engrossed from the start.
To give you a bit of back ground on the main character. Lieutenant General Garrett Sinclair is the United State’s Army’s top special forces commander. He is unique in that he participates in operations with his personal Joint Special Operations Command team, a team that he put together with the best of the best. Iran remains high in his list of enemies to the United States, whose leadership remain a constant threat. This is beyond well written and very detailed I just had a hard time connecting with it so I can’t give it more then three stars. The pacing is spot on.

this was a great mystery novel, I really enjoyed the storyline and getting to know the characters. It was so well done and I look forward to more from the series.

An extreme terrorist organization wants to unleash their newest weapon in D.C. on Inauguration Day. Can Army Lieutenant General Garrett Sinclair and his team stop this from happening?

I absolutely loved this book
It a new author to me so now I have to go back and read other books
I especially liked the all over the place action
I have read a few a military based stories not of this level though
I’m excited I can’t wait to start another

I hope this novel becomes a series of books. Garrett Sinclair is a combination of Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer from 24.
He has a recently departed wife and two grown children and still he is out saving the world through sheer guts and determination along with his trusty crew.
Pirizad is a terrorist that hates America and has planned a very complex scheme that will either kill people outright or cause them to kill one another.
If that is not enough, it appears there may be people in the US government that are helping the terrorist , indeed may have had something to do with Sinclair’s wife’s death.
It is fast paced and very detailed.
Very very good
I recommend

Thanks to net galley.com and St. Martin Press for the advance ARC for my honest review.

Did like it although, found it unbelievable or plausible at times but the writing, escaping into the pages, the fast pace, mix in the tension, the suspense, the overload of action, good verses evil , builds to a great conclusion and glad that I read this one.

With 'Chasing the Lion', you get a multi-layered storylines, the author A.J. Tata kept them all straight but check reality at the door, since I felt this one would have been better as a Jake Mahegan thriller with a 3 Star General Garrett Sinclair with his Joint Special Operations Command team in support, still keep most of the storyline, although make the "West Pointer's", the first US female President, along with President Davidison bait, trap and eliminate the "Lion of Tabas".

By thinking they let him due a minimal strike on US soil, set up a war with Iran but the author laid it on a little too thick with how bad Dariush Parizad was, yet numerous times he could have taken out General Sinclair, yet he never does and the only flaw to this one at times, just insert Jake Mahegan and not the Generals.

Looking for a softer version of the military thriller? Tata gives enough detail to let the reader know what is going on without the suspense that makes you uncomfortable. There is plenty of military lingo to keep it exciting, but it is contextually explained for those non-military readers as well.

This is a great example of why former operators make amazing authors, the action and details are always spot on! General Tata gets everything right in this book, which is not the easiest thing to accomplish, but he makes it look easy. Tata introduces us to Dagger, a JSOC team led by Lt. General Garrett Sinclair, a Ranger in command of a special team of hunters whose mission is to kill or capture the worst terrorists in the world. He's recently lost his beloved wife to cancer and suffers that devistating loss constantly. Sinclair is tasked with tracking down Dariush Parizad, an Iranian Quds Force general planning a nerve agent attack, and the Dagger team goes all out to stop him. This is 21st century combat at its finest, when Sinclair and his team are drawn into the shadows of not only an attack on the homeland but also a conspiracy possibly reaching all the way to the presidency. Since General Tata has been in the fight his writing has an authentic feel, almost like he's writing an after action report. I hope this is only the first of many books bringing us the missions of Dagger team, I look forward to seeing what the future holds for them. If you enjoy the work of Brad Taylor or Jack Carr you will definitely find a place for General Tata, you can tell the warriors who know what they are talking about.

Thank you to St Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

So this story wasn't exactly what I was hoping for or expecting.
The story begins with the discovery of a cave full of people holding their phones to the sky, clutched in their dead hands with a question as to how and what they died from. From here General Garrett Sinclair and his team are tasked with discovered what the biological compound is, who is responsible and just what is their plan for this chemical.
The storyline is fast moving, full of action and deceptions but is, for me, told in a very dry monotone type of narrative, even when Garrett is talking about the death of his wife. I was looking for more background and story built around Demon Rain which is the chemical to be used in an attack on the USA. The story had a very jarring quality in the delivery and felt somewhat rushed at times.
Although this wasn't a complete hit with me it was still an entertaining read sure to be enjoyed by many.

I really enjoyed this political thriller. This typically isnt a genre I read often but it kept my interest.. It was action packed although at times a bit over the top. I flew through it. I kept picturing this as an action movie while reading it because it's definitely written like that. If you enjoy military and political thrillers, check this one out!

Being a Army wife for 23 years (retired) I thought I would branch out of my normal comfort zone. The author definitely knows what he is writing about and it is easy to follow the development of the storyline. However, this story is not for someone who is unfamiliar with military operations.
Garrett Sinclair is a Army Lieutenant General and was out of the country when his wife died of cancer. He uncovers a plot by a extremist group run by a ruthless man, Parizad. He will kill anyone in his way and plans to kill millions for revenge and money. Garrett finds out the conspiracy goes all the way up the chain clear to the Presidency. Then he uncovers that his wife may have died not from cancer, but a drug they plan to unleash on the world.

This is a well designed book and if you know the military jargon and I think that you will enjoy this book. I plan to get this book for my husband who is a retired Army Veteran.

I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley and these are my willingly given thoughts and opinions.

Published by St. Martin's Press on June 1, 2021

There are so many things to dislike about Chasing the Lion, it’s hard to know where to start. The protagonist, the plot, and the prose are unworthy of a reader’s time.

The protagonist is Garrett Sinclair, a lieutenant general in the Army. Sinclair is completely full of himself. He takes every opportunity to tell the reader just how special he is. He is “a leader of combat warriors,” worshipped by the team he leads. He has “wrestled al Qaeda terrorists in knife fights.” There is no person in the world who is better equipped to understand the novel’s evil Iranian villain than Sinclair. There is “no one better” at fighting bad guys. An antagonist might be half his age, but Sinclair is “twice as quick.” Even if a villain “removed his mind, his body would still be a killing machie, and if [the villain] removed his arms, his mind would be a killing machine.” Sinclair is proud of the “selfless sacrifice it took to serve the nation and not himself.” Sinclair claims his maxim is “We do our job and don’t brag or bitch” before spending an entire novel bragging and bitching.

Sinclair is special not only because of his mental and physical superiority, but because (he tells us) he has a high moral standard. The standard is, to put it nicely, flexible. He condemns Iranians for torturing people before he uses torture to get the information he wants. He declares that’s he’s not a murderer but engages in two unnecessary revenge murders. Sinclair is a hypocrite who is blind to his own hypocrisy. I guess that’s the one aspect of his character that’s realistic, but it doesn’t make him easy to tolerate.

Sinclair also tells us that he’s a true American patriot who loves his children. Frankly, if you’re a father, you’re supposed to love your children. You don’t get extra credit for reminding the reader every now and then how much you love them, particularly when you devoted your life to not seeing them very often. (Thank God he had a patriotic wife who stayed home and raised them for him.) We are probably supposed to believe that his children love him, but the only child who makes an actual appearance (as a hostage) doesn’t even rate a speaking part. He’s a prop, not a character. A.J. Tata doesn’t try to develop the kid’s personality because the kid exists only so that Sinclair can save him while telling us what a great dad he is.

Thanks to his position in Joint Special Operations Command, Sinclair knows the president-elect and everyone else who important because a certain kind of thriller hero is expected to hang out with important people as a signal that the hero is also important. Not content with being a military policy maker, however, Sinclair is an action hero, leading his little group of followers on dangerous missions around the world because that’s what aging lieutenant generals do. Well, not really, but that’s what Sinclair does. I didn’t believe for a second that an older guy of his rank would be getting into all the fistfights, knife fights, and gun fights that are meant as a substitute for a plot.

What passes for a plot is based on evil Iranians who have developed some kind of ill-defined “mind control” gas that — I’m not joking here — makes people look at their cellphone screens, as if everyone doesn’t do that already. How exactly minds are controlled by the gas or the cellphones or what the controlled people are supposed to do is never explained. Sinclair at one point is going to kill the president because of “mind control” but we’re never told how he was instructed to do that. Of course, Sinclair has the world’s most powerful mind, so hearing his dead wife telling him to be a good boy is all it takes to overcome the nefarious mind control device. Still, Sinclair knows all about mind control because that’s what “stay at home” orders were. Yeah, public health edicts to prevent a contagion from spreading during a pandemic are mind control. Give me a break.

Perhaps sensing that the whole mind control scheme is too silly to credit, Tata has an evil Iranian mix some sarin gas with the mind control gas and sends a bunch of drones to release the gasses at the presidential inauguration. So wait, is the plan to control minds or to hope that the sarin gas (which actually dissipates pretty quickly in open air) will kill a bunch of people? The plot is too muddled to deliver a clear answer. And if that’s not sufficiently nonsensical, evil Iran has just discovered that it has huge oil deposits, so it intends to use cruise missiles to take out American oil refineries, making America dependent on Iranian oil. As if American would do anything other than invade Iran and take its oil if it did anything like that. Are we supposed to believe the ayatollah doesn’t know that? The notion that Iran is sending submarines with cruise missiles to attack the US is preposterous.

Some neocon Americans are in on the scheme (which they assume is only a small attack at the inauguration) because they want to provoke a war with Iran. I didn’t buy that, either. It’s one thing for neocons to pretend that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction as a pretense for invading Iraq and quite another to aid and abet an enemy attack on American soil. Maybe if Tata were a better writer, he would have sold me on the conspiracy, but the plot comes across as the lunatic raving of someone who suffers from paranoid delusions.

Sinclair grinds multiple axes as the story tears through through the thin plot. Sinclair tells us that the intelligence community and the CIA have repeatedly betrayed America without explaining which mistakes he regards as betrayals. He often expresses his disdain for neocons (presumably meaning Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld), a common theme on Fox News, a network that worshipped Cheney and Rumsfeld before the new cons replaced the neocons. Sinclair doesn’t flesh out those complaints either, making it difficult to understand what Sinclair actually believes. He comes across as an angry man whose anger is ill-defined. Sadly, there are a lot of those in the country. They might be the novel's target audience.

On a smaller scale, the plot imagines that the conspiracy [spoiler alert] victimizes Sinclair’s wife (whose death may not have occurred in the way it was explained to Sinclair) [end spoiler alert]. That’s only possible because the whole world revolves around Sinclair, who is just so important that naturally his wife has to be drawn into the conspiracy. A collateral benefit of that plot twist is Sinclair’s ability to tell us what a wonderful guy he is because he loved his wife. (They met at church, of course, because where else would they have met?) I guess that loving his perfect God-and-America-loving wife makes Sinclair special, as does loving his kids.

Tata’s prose is functional but too often overwrought. Sinclair embarks on a “complex and daring raid” that is part of “the most sensitive, important op in our lifetime, perhaps since World War II.” Sinclair saves the nation from “unspeakable attacks.” The villain is “an Iranian madman” who plans to execute a “sweeping plan that would force America to a tipping point of economic and psychological collapse.” (The absence of any acknowledgement that a good Iranian might exist suggests that Sinclair doesn’t believe in that possibility.) Unfortunately, all of this self-aggrandizing, Iran-hating prose doesn’t create even the slightest bit of dramatic tension. The plot is silly, the protagonist and the villain are both cartoons, and the insinuation of ill-developed politics into the plot prevent Chasing the Lion from working even on the minimal level of a mindless action novel.

NOT RECOMMENDED

About:

‘As a child, Dariush Parizad survived Iran’s Islamic uprising, becoming a symbol of the revolution. Named The Lion of Tabas by the ayatollah himself, Parizad rose through his nation’s military to become a lethal soldier and brilliant tactical commander. Now a general, he leads Quds Force, an extremist terrorist organization targeting America and its western allies.’

‘Assigned to stop the terrorist strike are Army Lieutenant General Garrett Sinclair and his Joint Special Operations Command team. Across the Middle East, Europe, and the US, Sinclair pursues Parizad only to discover a deeper conspiracy . . .’

My Thoughts:

That. Was. Intense! If you enjoy reading Military Thrillers, (Yes, Please!) I Highly Recommend CHASING THE LION!

Thank you, NetGalley and St Martin’s Press, for providing me with an eBook and physical copy of CHASING THE LION in request for an honest review.