The Forgotten Soldier

This military thriller was given to me as an award from the Hockessin Library. We have an ultra secret unit operating outside of US formal laws, outside the Constitution with one of its main operators having gone “rogue” by killing those Arabs who killed his brother. These Arabs, shallowly portrayed, have bigger plans which involves the Vice President of the US who is also often working outside of the rules and not working in sink with our task force. One's eyes are opened to what extent that people in the name of the US can roam and do “good.” There are always justifications. Taylor shows this task force as basically doing “good” in spite of “fuckups.” Our author does bring up Constitutional and ethical issues as well show more as trying to find some motivation to the Arabs. I think he is weak in both areas. This book is really at best a so so thriller when it could have been so much more.

Quotes: (page 102) “Billings said, 'Sir, that's not the way to look at this. As wrong as you may think it may be, if the Euro fails, it'll destroy any recovery we think we have. It's a national security issue. I've been working on this deal for damn near a year. And my point man is the target Kurt's got on the screen. You get rid of him, and you've lost the investment.'
Billings glanced at Jennifer, then went to Kurt, saying, ' Look, I'm sorry about what I said before. I have to put our nation's interest beyond a single attack. I'm not saying he was behind what you allege, because I really don't think he was, but even so, one death in Afghanistan isn't worth the destruction of the economy of the European Union---and the ripple effects into the United States. You remove him and you cut out the legs from under Greece. I'm sorry, but as you said, it's just a fact.'”

(page 271) ...“Too worried about the press. He'd been forced to reclass into another, safer military occupational specialty. He'd hated it. Then out of the blue, he had met Pike Logan and had a back-ended an invitation to the Task Force. A unit that didn't even exist. And he'd been allowed to train. Now he was wondering what he had been thinking.
One minute they were seriously discussing killing an American Task Force member, the next he was in a park preparing to take down a man he wasn't even sure was bad. And the speed of operations was something else again. He'd started the morning doing nothing but counter surveillance but now was going to end it either a hero or a goat. It was a different world, and it brought fear, but not about the fact that he was preparing to go hand-to-hand with two armed men. No, it wasn't the danger. It was the massive fear of screwing up.”

(pages 404-405) “'I believe that the vehicle is a VBIED, I think they intend to drive it right into the peace talks and set it off.'
'You sure about that? I think this is something to do with Billings. A hostage thing. Why on earth would they set off a car bomb at the peace talks? They're from Qatar.'
'I don't know. Middle East agendas are impossible to sort out. Why does ISIS behead members of al Qaida? Why does the Taliban fight ISIS? It's not worth finding a motive. That's what I think is happening.'” show less

The Forgotten Soldier is the 9th book in the Pike Logan thriller series. This is the 3rd one in a row I’ve read and and I liked this one more than the other two, even though the start made me wonder if I’d like it at all! Great setup and finish. I was a little leary about this one with one of the ‘good guys’ going rogue and becoming his own Judge, Jury and Executioner. But they brought the story back to a Taskforce ending and while it was sad it was still a very good one. For those who like international thrillers this is still a good series to lose yourself in. Pike a bit of a dick, but he gets the job done.

A task force man, Guy George, had a brother in Afghanistan as part of a special forces op and the whole team was ambushed show more and killed. His belongings are shipped back and by special request, were not ‘scrubbed’. IE cleaned and filtered to spare the family extra hardship. It happened to have the packaged his brother had for the mission he was on. It had the pictures of 4 faces, his brothers last mission, and likely the ones who caused his demise.

At first Guy was taking it fairly stoically, and agreed to sit out his next mission helping research other targets. Then he identified someone he believed to be one of his brothers targets. Who happened to be the son of a powerful and influential man from Qatar. Once Guy learned that there wouldn’t even be authorization to look into the man and his friends, he decides to take the law into his own hands. He goes extralegal, from an already extra legal organization.

Once the Taskforce discovers this, Pike is sent after him to prevent him from causing an international incident. Only Guy has disappeared and no one knows where he is or where his targets are going to be. So they need to find him, before they can stop him. And it takes them on a race around Greece. show less

An excellent outing with Pike Logan and his team chasing terrorists around the globe. The issue of boundaries on 'black ops', the operators, the supervisors, the administrators at all levels is dealt with extensively as well as the toll it takes on those who have to get down and dirty to accomplish the mission. This turns the thriller into something more, a view inside the minds and souls of those who go about the business of keeping America safe "outside the lines". The story runs smoothly with Pike, Jennifer, Knuckles and the newbies facing off against those initiating muslim terrorism. Well-done bu Brad Taylor, who seems as if he might have 'been there, done that' to one extent or another....

OK - just OK. Not much character development and a lot of references to things that happened in earlier novels in this series. I guess the author assumes anyone reading his books would have read them all. Other, better, authors that write novels with re-occurring characters (Berry, Preston & Child, Silva, and Child) take the time to at least re-aquatint their readers with the characters and their backstories. I might have liked this much more if Taylor had used that approach.

Excellent read. My first book by Brad Taylor and will definitely read another.