Covert Action

It took a while to develop, but what a story with a gut-punch revelation. So glad I have never had a passion for politics and having to know how best to determine future events! I received an ARC from NetGalley, and the opinions expressed are my own.

"Covert Action," the latest installment in the "Command and Control" series of thrillers from David Brun and J.R. Olsen published by Severn River Publishing (who provided me with the ARC I am reviewing) will not disappoint. For those of you unfamiliar with this series, this book is Volume 5 and is every bit as well written and thought provoking as its predecessors. This particular book focuses on the four "Stans" which were formerly provinces in the Soviet Union (inherited as conquests of Imperial Russia) and looks closely at the newly evolving world order and the struggle for power and influence between the West, China (in this book just coming off a defeat in Taiwan) and the Russian Federation (again, just coming off of a defeat in its Ukrainian incursion). If you know little about these earlier developments detailed in the earlier volumes of the "Command and Control" series, they are well worth the read (I have read all of them). The action here is somewhat less kinetic and tactical in nature and much more geopolitical and grand strategy, what our ancestors called "The Great Game." That means the read is a bit slower than the intensely tactical struggles relayed in some of the earlier volumes, but the payoff is a deeper understanding of some of the challenges facing the world we live in as nascent nationalism and religious differences clash with the new imperialism of China and the desire of Russia to hold on to what is left of the Soviet Empire while dealing with a United States torn between internal political divisions and a continuing desire to balance those tensions with external threats. Obviously, while there is no shortage of espionage and covert action in this book, what it makes clear are the stakes behind "Covert Action" and the ways in which it can backfire on those who believe they are exercising control through it. I was not disappointed with the read, although it took some time, but I do feel as though I am somewhat better versed in some complex issues than I was before reading the book. I therefore recommend it to those of you who don't mind a read which stretches your understanding and enriches your appreciation of the challenges confronting all of the would be players in "The Great Game."

I haven’t read any of the previous books in this series but after reading f this one, I am going to have to. I enjoyed the pace and plot of this book. The twists at the end were ones I didn’t predict and really threw me for a loop. I only wish the book didn’t junk around so much from one character to another as there were some parts that felt unnecessary and that attention could’ve been paid to the furtherance of the main plot. Overall, this was a fun read and I’d highly recommend it.