Steve R. Pieczenik

Out of the morning sun, militiamen kidnap a Catholic priest and suddenly the government of Botswana is wondering what is going on while the Vatican turns to their secret allies as well as extends a feeling to Op-Center. Mission of Honor is the ninth book of the Op-Center by Jeff Rovin finds the crisis management agency negotiating between the political fallout from Kashmir and figuring out how to react to events in the stable southern African nation that everyone quickly realizes that show more Europeans are pulling the strings.

Leon Seronga leads his Brush Vipers militiamen on a raid of Catholic church and kidnaps Father Bradbury to take to Vodun priest Dhamballa. The travel to the Vodun-Brush Viper hideout and treatment makes Bradbury call his missionary deacons and tells them to leave Botswana, the first step of Dhamballa’s desire to his homeland returned to the Vodun gods not the Catholic one. Bob Herbert gets a call from Edgar Kline, an old South African colleague who now works for Vatican Office of Security, wanting Op-Center’s help to find their missing priest though he’s on his way to the U.S. to ask an American bishop to temporarily replace Bradbury until his return. Meanwhile Paul Hood informs General Mike Rodgers that Striker would not be reconstituted but wants to create a Black-Ops HUMINT unit lead by Rodgers who is enthusiast about creating it and quickly gets things moving on the Botswana front with help from Herbert. Hood then learns from the head of Japanese intelligence that some European businessmen with ties to Botswana doing things in China, which sends Op-Center looking at outside influences behind the kidnapping. Seronga and a young recruit kill two deacons then travel with two Spanish soldiers, sent to support the Vatican, to the airport to meet the American bishop to kidnap him only to see him assassinated and the gunman shot by an airplane pilot who takes off. The two Brush Vipers exit the airport but are followed by Maria Corneja the first Op-Center undercover agent in the country. Eventually Maria joins the two to find a peaceful end to the situation knowing they didn’t kill the bishop, but someone wants the government and the world to blame them. Two more agents, Aideen Marley and David Battat, join up with the Brush Vipers and Maria then convince a disappointed Dhamballa to give them Bradbury and to come along with them as well while the Brush Vipers disperse before the Botswana military arrives. Though the situation in the Botswana is been cooled down, Hood and the rest of Op-Center want to get at those outside the country that started the situation.

This is the best book of the series since the fifth installment, Balance of Power, with very good character development and the switch from a military resolution to HUMINT Black-Ops resolution being the biggest reasons why. The transition of the workings of Op-Center also marks the transition of the series to hopefully a better overall product especially with the reintroductions of characters Marley, Battat, and Corneja from past books to a story threads connecting to the next book in the series. However, the book isn’t perfect with the biggest thing was the religious aspect not because that it was religious but because it was all incorrect. Vodun is a West African religion and one of the influences (along with Catholicism) in West Indian Voodoo, however Botswana is in southern Africa and has no indigenous connection with Vodun. And Botswana is a majority Protestant Christian nation (66%) with Catholicism less than 10%, making the placing of this story in the nation weird on numerous counts.

Mission of Honor might be the best book of the series with Jeff Rovin changing the titular agency’s focus from having a military solution to a black-ops approach with a reintroduction of characters from previous installments as field agents. While not perfect, this book has stuck with me for 17 years with being memorable from the series and is still very good. show less

This book is 7th in the Hidden series by [a:Emma Holly|4708|Emma Holly|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1299033305p2/4708.jpg]. It revolves around an alternate universe of werewolves, werecats, elfs, dragons, fairies and magic. Since the first 6 books in the series are m/f or m/m/f, I did not read them and decided to read this strictly M/M story without any back story. Yes, it was very confusing and I missed out on a huge chunk of what was actually going on with the story line. show more I don't want to take anything away from my rating because of my confusion about this so this review will be about the M/M story only. We'll just pretend I knew what the heck was happening.

Firefighter Chris Savoy is a huge, strapping, 6'8" weretiger. He is deeply in the closet as many of his fellow werecats and firefighter co-workers are homophobic. Police officer Tony Lupone is a werewolf who has recently come out of the closet (he comes out in one of the earlier novels) and is now seen as an outsider by his pack and fellow police officers. (With the exception of his best friend Nate and brother Rick.) To make matters worse for Tony, he is a gay virgin.

Tony and Chris meet officially (they already know of each other) at the engagement of their two best friends and sparks fly. Things get hot and heavy between them and Tony admits he is a virgin, but Chris has sex with him anyway and leaves before Tony wakes up the next day and doesn't contact him again. They meet again at their friends' wedding. Blah, blah, blah, bed buddies, vicious cycle of Chris being a dick and using Tony and then going back into the closet, etc., etc... So, be prepared to hate Chris, at least for a little while.

I did enjoy this book, even though it confused me. It wasn't too hard to fill in the blanks about the back story I missed. The love story did leave me incredibly frustrated through. I'm not a big fan of one character being the whipping boy of the other without adequate retribution. Chris really treated poor Tony like shit and there should have been some serious groveling going on.

I'm not going to recommend this book to the average M/M romance reader. Too much of the book was frustrating and sad. If you are a m/f and M/M crossover fan and enjoy the paranormal universe genre, I would recommend giving this series a shot. It was obviously well thought out and has a lot of fans and the rating are excellent. show less

This is a highly predictable, action, right-winged novel. The good guy characters are made heroic and the bad guys are immoral. Seems like material for a low class action film. I would not waste your time with this propaganda.

Boek met gedateerde en onjuiste voorspellingen van de toekomst van de stand van de technologie. Mensen bezoeken het Internet in een soort Virtuel Reality, de meeste burgers hebben geen mobiele telefoons (mm, zou dat niet lekker rustig zijn), agenten in dienst van de overheid hebben een zogehten 'Virgil' (Virutel Global Interface Link), een communicatie-device met GPS ontvanger, computer etc. in een.

Dit soort boeken zijn ideaal voor op het strand, tijdens het reizen, of ergens waar je met show more een simpel boek rustig kunt zitten lezen, zonder dat het storend is als je even afgeleid wordt. show less