Dalton Fury

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Full Assault Mode
Series: Delta Force #3
Author: Dalton Fury
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 335
Words: 121.5K

Synopsis:

From Kobo.com

When SEAL Team Six killed Osama bin Laden, they show more pulled a treasure trove of intelligence on planned attacks on U.S. soil. Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's new leader, is activating his most trusted (and deadliest) terrorists to carry out his newest plot: to detonate a bomb inside one of the sixty-four commercial nuclear power plants in the U.S. in an attack ten times worse than 9/11, causing radiological fallout that would kill hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans.

The President wants answers quickly, and after Kolt Raynor saved his life a few months earlier, he knows Delta Force is fully capable. But Kolt is on the verge of getting forced out of JSOC for disobeying orders in Pakistan—and when he's offered a slot in Tungsten, an ultra-secret deep-cover organization, he jumps at the chance. Now his task is to infiltrate al Qaeda and prevent this deep-cover terror cell from making their plot a reality before it's too late.

My Thoughts:

The above synopsis isn't that full because I didn't care enough to write out any more and what Kobo included was good enough. Needless to say, there was a lot more involved than what was described. In fact, by the time I was done with this book I was exhausted myself and beginning to think that maybe Superman needed to take a few lessons from Kolt Raynor.

The book starts out with Raynor locking horns with his new boss and disobeying direct orders so that Raynor can rescue a fellow Delta Operator. This also allows him to bag a big time terrorist and get some much needed info to Agencies like the CIA, etc. It has the bad effect of putting him into direct conflict with his superiors which leads to him being “re-evaluated”. We all know what that means.

That opens up Raynor to be recruited into Tungsten though. If Delta Force is a black ops, then Tungsten is blacker than black AND they can operate on American soil. Think Treadstone without the brainwashing from the Jason Bourne franchise. Raynor gets involved with helping terrorists and I have to admit, I was wondering if he was going to cross a line. Thankfully he didn't but that was because he really played Superman.

In the final attack on a Nuclear Power Plant, Raynor figures out that the terrorists are actually planning three levels of attacks, so as to distract and confuse anyone responding. Not only does he figure it out, he singlehandedly deals with them all, WHILE being fired upon by the security forces at the Power Plant. I was expecting a Dagwood sandwich in terms of heroics and this book felt like my order was Supersized without me wanting that.

That “too much action” (which if I'm being honest I wouldn't have believed possible to be a problem for me in a bleeding Delta Force Military Action/Adventure book!) was one of the reasons this didn't get a higher rating. The other reason was the inclusion of Miss Delta Force, codename Hawk. Mainly because there were some small but not subtle “romance vibes” between her and Raynor. I don't care if it's realistic or not, keep your filthy romance out of my action books please.

After writing all that I had to sit back and make sure this was actually a 3 star read. It was. While I might have complained about Action Fatigue, that is 1000% better than complaining about a LACK of action in a book like this. For example, Hawk, the female operative, gets captured in her civvies and ends up putting 2inches of her high heel through one of the terrorist's skull. How awesome is that?!? That is what I expect from a series called Delta Force.

Another thing that I realized that I liked, was the whole Group Dynamics. Usually, I'm a single hero kind of guy, none of this group stuff for me. But when Raynor went on his own in Tungsten, I realized I really liked how the Delta Force Operators worked together. They weren't a group of single heroes, but a real unit. Personally, I hope Raynor goes back to Delta Force in the next book. We'll see though.

And holy tabascoman, did I write a lot more than I intended! See you tomorrow.

★★★☆☆ show less

Written by a recent Delta retiree, the book was constructed to document efforts to find and kill Usama bin Laden. It was written prior to the actual killing of UBL by Navy SEALs and from the author's perspective, that of a tactical operator. Sometimes he besmirched decisions made above his pay grade--typical for someone who's not been to high levels of command. Sometimes, the action gets very, very tactical...to me that's boring. He obviously loved his job and those with whom he fought for show more his country; thus the book. show less

*Book source ~ Many thanks to Macmillan Audio for providing a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Kolt Raynor, code name Racer, was at the top of his game as a Delta Force Commander when one bad decision on a covert operation plunged him into the abyss. After being kicked out of Delta Force and the military completely, for three years he took odd jobs to get by and drank his life away. Then one day there was a knock at his crappy trailer door and he was offered the chance to get show more back into the game, but as a civilian. The job was very risky, as in not-come-back-alive risky, but it was worth it for Kolt to do it and do it well. He had three weeks to train and it wasn’t going to be a piece of cake. If he survived the training then he would be able to start the job. After that, he just needed to survive it. Is Kolt too broken to get his head and body together? Or will he do whatever it takes to complete the mission?

I have a special thing for military thrillers probably because my husband and my son are both Marines. If the writing and the plot can keep me engaged then there isn’t much that will put me off the book. This story is not only one that kept me engaged from beginning to the end, but kept me on the edge of my seat. So many anxious moments when things could go wrong and at times did go wrong, but I was drawn right along and raring to keep going. Black Site is real enough to stave off disbelief of some of the situations and the descriptions and actions are just right, not too much and not too little. The varying POVs are something I particularly enjoy, so it was nice to get the story from the angle of other characters.

Since I listened to the audio of this book I have to comment on the narrator, Ari Fliakos. What a sexy voice that man has! Nice inflection and a variety of tones means I wasn’t bored listening to him. In fact, I enjoyed his narration so much I’m going to pick up other books he’s done and hope he continues to narrate audiobooks for some time to come.

All-in-all an awesome military/thriller/action book with lots of peril, weapons, bad guys, good guys and, for once, a woman riding to the rescue (at least in one instance). *wink* show less

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspott, Librarything & Bookhype by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Tier One Wild
Series: Delta Force #2
Author: Dalton Fury
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 344
Words: 124K

Synopsis:

From Devilreads & Me

Former disgraced Delta Force show more commander Kolt "Racer" Raynor has earned his way back into The Unit after redeeming himself during an explosive operation at a black site in Pakistan. But he is about to face his deadliest challenge yet.

The most wanted man in the world, American al Qaeda commander Daoud al Amriki, and his handpicked team of terrorist operatives, have acquired stores of Russian-built, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles (SAM's) from ex-Libyan spies in Cairo. Their mission: infiltrate the United States and take down American aircraft. The country's best are tasked with stopping them. But when a SEAL Team Six mission to take down al Amriki goes wrong, Major Raynor and his Delta Force team find themselves front and center as Amriki and his terrorists work their way closer to America. And time is running out.

Amriki and his group make it into American and bring down several planes. One cell is caught, which was Amriki's plan to distract everyone from his real plan to shoot down the President of the United States who is going to be traveling by helicopter. With the laws of the land forbidding them to act, Delta Force is left on the sidelines as an official agency. But when Raynor and his friend TJ (who was captured by Amriki in the previous book and knows him like a second brother) strike out on their own, they know they are doing the right thing.

TJ gives his life to stop Amriki and Raynor kills the son of a monkey, thus saving the President.

My Thoughts:

While I'm giving this the same rating as the previous book, I enjoyed my time reading this more. Raynor isn't so much of a jerkface due to his returning officially to Delta Force, but he doesn't let the reader forget for one instance that he's the new and improved version of Kolt Raynor. I think most of my enjoyment sprang from the fact that Raynor isn't as much a solo character as in the first book. Usually, I'm a big fan of the Lone Cowboy (in whatever setting) against the world, but Raynor just works better as part of a team and Delta Force is ALL about the Team.

The action starts out hot and heavy with Delta Force taking down a hijacked 747 WHILE IT IS TAKING OFF! That was just cool. It felt like the author started out with a sprint and then we eased into a long, loping run to go the distance. The rest of the book was us getting to the scene where Raynor and Amriki face off and the President of the United States is in danger.

The one issue I did have was with there being a female in Delta Force. Given, she's not supposed to be on the Action Team but she's part of an initiative to broaden the scope of what Delta can do (ie, married couple's are a lot less suspicious than a group of four men). I've google'd women in the special forces and most of the articles are by publications that I don't trust, not one iota. So while they report that there are women in the various branches of the Special Forces, nothing has been said/written if the regulations for entering have changed (ie, the physical side of things). Aside from that, I am not in favor of women serving in combat positions in the military anyway. I realize that is yesterday's fight though and have pretty much moved on.

That does bring me to something that I did like about a modern military, the psychology of the people who can operate as Special Forces. The author shows how the various teams are rotated so that they can not only get some R&R but also be examined by Shrinks. People can't go around killing people (even ones who really do deserve to die) without there being consequences to the mind and emotions. While Fury doesn't do a full on “Headology 101”, he does acknowledge it is a real factor and needs to be addressed. I talked about this briefly in my Whose Body? review earlier this month but it feels like this generation of soldiers is the first where their mental space is as of much concern as the physical side of things. I for one find that encouraging.

To end, this was much more enjoyable than book one and I'm looking forward to what Kolt Raynor and his team has to deal with in the next book.

★★★✬☆ show less