Hunt the Wolf

I received the four SEAL Team Six books Hunt the Wolf, Hunt the Falcon, Hunt the Scorpion, Hunt the Jackal on the same day and I binge read them one after the other. Other reviewers will tell you the details of the plots, but I want to write about the series as a whole.

Although I tried to read them in order, the e-editions I received did not clearly indicate the sequence, even on the OTHER BOOKS BY list. I took a guess and read them Falcon (3), Scorpion(2), Wolf (1), Jackal (4). It didn't matter much, though, there are some timelines of injuries, deaths, and traumas that run across the series but the books stand alone pretty well. The quality of the text is not even across the whole, however, with Jackal being more choppy than the show more others. I wondered if one of the writing partners put less effort into that one.

The world of these books is not like the one I inhabit, and I don't say that because I am not a SEAL running all over the world chasing bad guys. I need to sleep, I need to eat, and when I sprain an ankle or break a bone, it takes weeks and months to heal. Not these guys. Thomas Crocker tells us every book how many days a year he is on assignment and away from his family - 200, 260, 300 days. These guys don't have circadian rhythms, I guess. Jet lag, no worry. Sleep deprivation, no worry. Let's go. Let's go. Gunshot wounds, broken bones, sprains, torture, emotional trauma, all the standard ordeals of action thrillers, no worry. We are SEALS! We bounce out of the hospital onto a plane to the next assignment. It's exhausting just to read. And what's with the diet sodas? I would have thought these guys would need to pack calories to maintain this schedule. They even skip a meal now and again. Never knew soldiers to do that.

The texts are charmingly exact about technology and technological jargon, telling us the complete names of many pieces of equipment and operations protocols, and carefully adding the abbreviation in parentheses. As the Squad Leader, Crocker barks seemingly redundant and trivial orders to his guys, even though he runs them through the same drills every day. Not sure how this works in the military, in the business world he would get in trouble for talking down to his staff.

These are fun books but I imagine that my capacity would be about 6, especially if the writing quality remains at the lower level of book 4. Also, since they are written in supposed real time, the authors run the risk of getting ahead of current events.

I received review copies of Hunt the Wolf, Hunt the Falcon, Hunt the Scorpion, Hunt the Jackal by Don Man and Ralph Pezzullo (Mulholland Books) through NetGalley.com. show less

The US Embassy in Morocco is devastated by a large explosion killing many Americans and Moroccans in the attack.
Tom Crocker is a team leader for an assault team of US Navy Seals Team Six. Crocker and his team are sent to capture a terrorist known as AZ but he slips through their fingers, and Crocker, not wanting to fail,vows to find him.
During a climb of the mountain known as K2, Crocker meets a close friend of the King of Norway who tells him of a young girl who went missing, and Crocker and his team are on a race against time to find AZ and the missing girl.
The team travels to Marseille, Pakistan, and Jordan until the epic showdown with AZ and his thugs, who, are about to commit an attack so ruthless that if it's sucessful, the show more entire world will feel the effects.

I had a very difficult time putting this book down. Everything was so well written and described that I could almost imagine being there.
If you don't like violence or foul language, this is not a book for you.
This book is a fitting tribute to the dedication to the SEALs and allows us a little peek at something we don't get to experience.
This book will most definately be a re-read for me show less

Thomas Crocker is the leader of SEAL Team Six. Their mission: assault a compound run by Abu Rasul Zaman and capture him alive, if possible. It's a simple mission, and they complete it with relative ease, but after the dust is settled and SEAL Team Six moves on to their next task Crocker isn't satisfied with the results. When he investigates Zaman further he discovers he is connected to much darker things than he is already accused of.

I don't hate the book. It's definitely exciting if you like shootouts and firefights, but it's a little bit over-the-top at times, and there were some aspects of the writing that bothered me. For example, Thomas Crocker has an interesting habit of passing out during boring parts of the story so he can wake show more up right before the next action sequence. There was also an utterly pointless mountain climbing scene that added nothing to the plot, and the ending fight scene felt a little bit out of sequence. I won't spoil anything, but one scene could easily have been moved forward a dozen page or so and it would have been a lot more satisfying.

So, Hunt the Wolf, it's alright. It's not exactly fine literature, and it definitely has a few problems, but it had its moments. Like a bad action movie, I suppose. show less

Book source ~ NetGalley

Chief Warrant Officer, Thomas Crocker of SEAL Team Six and his team are on the way for some mountain climbing training in Islamabad when they are given a mission. Intel puts a known terrorist at an address in Karachi, Pakistan. They are to go in, locate, and bring Abu Rasul Zaman out alive. Except the mission goes sideways and after the smoke clears they’re told Zaman isn’ty one of the bodies left behind. He’s escaped. Mission failure. It eats at Crocker as he and his team are dismissed to go do their climb. When he meets up with a Norwegian diplomat on the mountain things take a turn that’s unexpected and now the clock is ticking. Will Crocker and his men finish the mission after all?

Full of action this show more is definitely a thrill ride with a side of mystery from beginning to end. However, it lags a bit in spots, it’s a tad repetitive in areas, and if you love descriptions of weapons then you’ll definitely love this story. Because each and every weapon is listed each and every time they gear up. In addition, I am not really a fan of Crocker. He seems to be more than a touch obsessive-compulsive about working out and pushing himself – even to the point of hurting himself. Extreme and more than a little alarming. His personality is also a tiny bit sketchy although he gets the job done, I can say that about him. Eat your heart out, John McClane. There are some POV problems, not many but enough to pull me out of the story. Otherwise, this is an adrenaline-loving, white hat vs black hat, save the girl, tale from beginning to end. show less

Don Mann draws the reader in to his world of action and intrigue with crisp, tight dialogue and colorful descriptions. The combat sequences are good, with lots of detail, but enough "fog of battle" to keep them believable.

This installment is long on action but fairly short on character development with the series characters. The characterization of incidental characters is excellent, with several being intriguing to the point of wanting to know more about them. Even a fictional SSgt Nancy Cisneros, USMC deserves more than a few paragraphs in the Prologue. The glaring exception in characterization is that of the villains. The villains are cardboard cutouts set up on a known distance range.

The evidence of the villains' evil is focused show more on American sensibilities. Corrupt governments, suicide attacks, and sex slave trafficking are global problems, but American readers will find the list of charges against the villains particularly abhorrent.

Exotic locations and interesting background give the book a depth that the story line itself doesn't quite provide.

Taken as a standalone novel, the book is good to very good. Taken with the background of the rest of Mann's Seal Team Six novels, it's solidly in the very good category. show less

I haven't read many books that follow SEAL Team Six, mostly they have only made an appearance in some of the books that I've read. So this is somewhat of a new reading experience for me. When this book and the others of this series were made available for me on NetGalley I picked them up hoping to try something different.

What I really enjoyed about this book was that you could tell that Don Mann really knows his stuff. Everything was described with such precision and with some of the events that happened in this book you would either have to have real-life knowledge or an amazing imagination in order to have written them.

Crocker was such a dynamic character to follow. On the one hand he is a strong leader of his group, but on the other show more hand he is a man who has learned from his previous mistakes and wants to be able to spend time with his family. I loved his strength but also that little bit of vulnerability he would show from time to time.

I loved the action in this book. While it is prevalent throughout the book it does build towards the end until you're left on the edge of your seat gasping at the final showdown. I really look forward to reading more of this series.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Wolf. show less

If special-ops fiction is your thing, this is certainly one for the summer beach reading list. The pacing is frenetic and there's quite an emphasis on door-kicking (as they say) with a minimum of character development outside of the main character (the team leader). And frankly, the author is better at the action sequences anyway.

While portions of the book clearly draw upon the author's experience as a SEAL team member, the full sequence of events described in the book goes a bit beyond believability due to their scale and range. However, the interactions of the team leader with the polticos in Washington ring true as they manage to spin blame toward the operators for a operation gone somewhat haywire.

It's disappointing that the show more writing didn't delve into the mental side of the SEALs' work and also gave short shrift to the teamwork inherent not only within the team but also to the various units that provide support to SEALs in field operations. But hey, this is beach fiction (or a good choice for a cross-country flight) so there's no need to get too picky about those sorts of details. show less