Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Get buckled in because from beginning to end this book is going to take you on a ride! Not a second of lull and everything is fast paced and will keep you invested and energized.

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Fabulous story that I could not put down. Would highly recommend to fans of this genre. Great writing, and I will look for more from this author.

This protagonist has progressed through eight stories now to become a solid family man whose weakness is used against him and his team which has so much more to lose than just their lives for the first time. I love how David and his team have gone from being cutthroat mercs to their country's soldiers of the war on terror, and the greatest accomplishment is that it is such a natural progression. I stuck with this character based on the promises that it would be worth it and I'm so happy to state that it very well is. I look forward to Kasper's newest novels, it has been a satisfying experience for me and I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in a great read.

The Enemies of My Country by Jason Kasper
Shadow Strike #2

Thrills, chills, and derring-do fill the pages of this action-packed adventure that sees a team of black-ops elite soldiers dealing with a threat that will challenge them in more ways than one. I found out recently that this might be a spin-off series from the “American Mercenary” series that seems to be David Rivers story prior to this book’s beginning. That said, this book is a standalone story and very well done!

What I liked:
* David: team leader, husband, father, calm, wise, lethal, excellent at his job.
* The Team and the way they interact, have one another’ backs, work as a team – would love to learn more about each one of them.
* The writing and plot – it is much more than the typical terrorist military black-ops story. I liked the back-story of the main villain, BK, and knowing his motivation.
* Seeing the way David’s focus changed when he felt his family’s life might be on the line.
* David’s wife and daughter
* The real feel of the writing and the way it appealed to all my senses.
* Knowing that the author has lived what he writes about
* Contemplating how real this story might be…and if it could happen someday.
* Getting to read a new-to-me author that impressed me.
* All of it really except…

What I didn’t like:
* Knowing that there are elements in the world that want to harm others. Some call them terrorists while they consider themselves to be fighting for just causes…
* The pain suffered by the common man as seen in a variety of scenes in this book

Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I read more in this series? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and Severn River Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest Review.

5 Stars

BLUF: The Enemies of my Country is more effective than a double-shot of espresso to get your heart racing. The thrill-seeking and borderline suicidal David Rivers returns to breathe life into a plot line reminiscent of the TV series 24. The early seasons.

When you pick up a Jason Kasper novel, you can be sure that you are reading a story that is as real as it gets. His first novel, Greatest Enemy, introduced us to David “Suicide” Rivers, a former Army Ranger and West Point cadet with a penchant for jumping off tall structures and coming under canopy dangerously close to the ground. His descriptions of everything from BASE jumping to Close Quarters Battle gives you a shot of adrenaline without having to put your life on the line.

After a successful 6-book run in the American Mercenary series, Suicide returns as the leader of an agile, covert paramilitary team comprised of former mercenaries that exists for one purpose – to kill terrorists before they can carry out an attack on the homeland. His team of eclectic characters includes Cancer, the team’s sniper and his second-in-command; Racegun, a former competition shooter and bad guy bodyguard; Doc, the team’s body-building medic; and Ian, an intelligence specialist who acts as both a moral compass and sanity check.

When Suicide and his team miss an opportunity to eliminate the terrorist Bari Khan in Syria, it’s just another miss in the game the U.S. military and intelligence community have been playing since 9/11. But when their subsequent hit on the same guy also misses, Suicide’s team uncovers evidence that Khan is in possession of hundreds of American supplied rockets. And he’s well-funded, well-equipped, and well on his way to carrying out what the team was designed to prevent.

Coming under fire for apparent miscues, his team is sidelined just as they uncover a critical clue pointing to the terrorist’s intended target. And it’s his worst nightmare. A scrap of paper found in Syria mentioning his wife and daughter by name is all the motivation he needs to forsake the umbrella of the CIA and rely on the one thing he has always counted on – his men.

Kasper’s experience as a Ranger and Green Beret is evident throughout the book. The Enemies of my Country is a page-turning thriller full of adrenaline-inducing action that makes it hard to turn out the light at night without first doing some mindful breathing exercises. The high-altitude parachute infiltration scene is hands-down one of the best I’ve ever read, and it is only one of many in this book. If you’re not already reading Jason Kasper, you’re missing out!

Ever wondered how an action thriller novel would be that is a cross of the badass shootouts from The Expendables, the high-tech mercenary group from 6 Underground, and a disavowed team operating against both the enemy and the allies on a time crunch to prevent a catastrophe of humongous destruction at the same time of Mission Impossible? That’s the beauty of The Enemies of My Country by Jason Kasper.

The Enemies of My Country features a high precision low footprint group of ex-mercenaries now working as an unofficial scalpel for the CIA with the unique mindset of focusing on new and budding terrorists and bad guys that have the potential to be the next bin laden, so they can stop the threat there and then. This team is lead by David Rivers, the lead badass protagonist. Even though I have not read the previous David Rivers books, I had no trouble slipping into gear with this adrenaline action fest. The first chapter itself opens with a barrage of Barrett M107 .50 cal rounds coupled with the HK 417’s 7.62 mm rounds as David Rivers and his team try to ambush a target on their hit list. The ambush doesn’t go as planned and the target narrowly escapes. The team later gathers intelligence of a massive missile strike planned against an unknown target in the US on the 4th of July by the Chinese Uyghur dissident who is waging war against the western world with the help of ISIS. The plot thickens further when David Rivers’ family is somehow tied into the plot, allowing readers to witness a feral and ungodly rage born out of the necessity to protect his family, a choice that may very well be against his directives as a contractor for the CIA. One thing was for certain, until the very last assault from the team, I had no clue what was going to happen. The plot unwinded and twisted so well that I could only guess and fail at predicting what would happen next.

The firepower in this action thriller is massive. There are brutal, fast-paced, and extremely well executed action sequences that feel like set pieces out of the Expendables movies with violence and bloodshed without caution. The weaponry and tactical details are well defined to augment the visualization of the shootouts. Every team member is given his due spotlight in the war zones without distracting from the environment of the action.

Even though I jumped into the book without possessing any background knowledge of the characters, I was able to get a great sense of what drives each character to do what they do. It’s uncanny for a character to be so well written that you can pick a later book in the series and still gel with the character. Each team member fulfills a unique role in the team dynamic, some as basic as the medic, and some as controversial as a somewhat broken moral compass who advocates the team to put aside any concepts of nobility towards their enemies and fight dirty, serving

the dark tone of the narrative where the lines blur easily. You always have that sense of unease where a character may cross a line one too far. The writing style is reminiscent of that of Brad Taylor’s Pike Logan series as the first person POV on David switches to third person POV when focusing on other characters. The switch seems seamless and helps to develop the characters rather than focusing solely on one character’s development.

The antagonist of the story was not clearly defined or developed in the narrative. However, I feel this to be more of an active decision on the author’s part to keep the mystery going behind the actual benefactor and mastermind of the attack to be perpetrated by the antagonist in this story since there are clues dropped throughout the story where characters mention there has to be a mastermind behind the antagonist who is pulling the strings. I would love to see this mystery uncovered in future action thrillers.

Authentically described shootouts coupled with fast paced narrative and a badass and instantly likable legion of shooters and operators make for one of the best action packed reads you must read in 2021. I highly enjoyed The Enemies of My Country by Jason Kasper and I am intrigued to check out prior books by him.

I was given an ARC to read in exchange for my review. I thank the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC and the opportunity, I really appreciate it. I had never read Jason Kasper before so I was unfamiliar with his writing and the main character David Rivers. So before I read The Enemies of My Country I first read the short works The Ranger Objective (which involves David Rivers on his first mission as a ranger in Afghanistan) and The Night Stalker rescue (which relates to David Rivers on his first mission as a contractor for the CIA in the Phillipines).

In this novel David Rivers works on a team of military contractors who are targeted at terrorists who are expected to grow in stature to such influence that they will have the ability to command significant terrorist attacks. So the story follows the team's pursuit of one such terrorist. The terrorist gets some serious weaponry which gives him the ability to stage a devastating attack. Of course all these military type actions go sideways and the terrorist eludes the team. Things devolve to where the team is risking life and freedom in their efforts to catch the terrorist and stop the attack. I really enjoyed the book and I highly recommend it.

Hoping to like the novel, I began reading and was immediately thrust into a combat scene that seemed to go on interminably. Author Jason Kasper umped the gun here, involving me in battle without giving me a single reason why I should care about it. Once we moved on to Chapter Two, I learned that the protagonist has a family and that he wants to be a good father, but this darn job gets in the way. And soon it does again. We take an interminable plane ride so that the team can parachute into Syria. The jumps are slowly pictured, and then we are in Syria, unsure why this bad guy BK has returned to the scene of his earlier action. Why do I care? The author has still not given me any reason and we are now 20% into the novel. The Enemies of y Country has thus far left me on the outside, and I chose not to go further.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

Non-stop action from beginning to end almost leaves the reader exhausted. David Rivers is a genuine action star, and when his hometown is threatened he turns it up to still another level.

Thanks to Netgallery and the publisher for allowing me to preview The Enemies of My Country, the first book in the Shadow Strike series by Jason Kasper. This is the first book I've read by Kasper but it won't be the last. After doing a little research, I learned there are previous books featuring the main characters so I wasn't sure if I would be lost. Kasper does a good job of catching the reader up to what previously occurred so it isn't necessary to have read the previous books. The pacing is relentless and the action has an aire of authenticity that would be hard to replicate unless you've experienced it firsthand. Kasper has written a fantastic book and has gained a new fan in me.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. David is currently living in Virginia with his family. On assignment in Seria he learns of a terrorist attack that will occur in a few days near his home. He is worried about his family. This book kept me on the seat of my pants.