The Blood Flag

Really good listen. I enjoyed every minute of it. Our hero, an FBI agent tears after a Nazi relic. He co-opts a disaffected Southern boy Nazi and they have adventures. I thought that the bureaucracy didn't do a very good job of keeping up with him and they would have been more controlling in actuality. Author is a former Navy NFO and I enjoyed the dearth of Navy advocacy in this book. There was a good bit of history involved and it was well told. Overall, intriguing story.

I would recommend that you have had some exposure to the early 20th century history to be able to get the most out of this book. I have read William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich which helped me understand a lot of the “whats” and “whys” in the book. The book revolves around the search for the most holy relic to the Nazi culture, the Blood Flag (Blutfahne) which holds the blood from the first Nazi “Martyrs” who died during the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler treated it like a holy relic. It disappeared shortly before the war ended.

Kyle Morrissey specializes in international terrorism for the FBI. He experiences a moment of unreality when days after attending the D-Day Ceremony at Normandy, he and his show more family are caught in a Nazi march in Germany. He questions how the evil the greatest generation fought and beat can still be in existence. As he researches modern Nazi-ism, he becomes obsessed, leading him to cooperate with the FBI agent in charge of tracking Neo-Nazis. Before too long Kyle finds himself looking for the Blood Flag as a way to gain admission to the top Neo-Nazi group in the world.

I enjoyed the history in the story. I thought the characters, especially Kyle and Jedidiah were interesting but never fully fleshed out. During the incident that starts Kyle’s obsession, he is accompanied by his wife and children. They promptly vanish except for one or two mentions for the rest of the book. He drops his own work in International Terrorism to pursue his Nazi obsession and the FBI does not reign him in. Jedidiah’s backstory is never truly explored. He was a virulent Neo-Nazi and now he is a confidential informant for the FBI. I never really got a good handle on his conversion. The German officers in the equivalent of the FBI remained a question on whether they sympathized with the Neo-Nazis or not.

To be clear, I enjoyed the book. I listened at every opportunity I had for the last few days. It certainly held my attention. But it ended somewhat abruptly and I was left with a lot of unanswered questions (see paragraph above).

Peter Ganim did a nice job as a narrator. He handled all the accents, American (both Southern and more non descript) German, and Russian well. Mr. Ganim did a nice job with the few females when they made appearances. His pacing with consistent with the action. The production values were excellent. I would definitely listen to another book narrated by Peter Ganim and will read another by James W. Huston. I just wish he had made The Blood Flag a little longer so my questions were answered.

Story (Plot) 4
Performance 5
Production Quality 5
Attention Holding 5

"This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of Audiobook Jukebox dot com." show less

I’ve been reading this author’s books for a good long while now. He kind of semi-retired from writing in 2003 after putting out seven books. Though he did release another in 2009, and then just put out the book I’ve read. He’s one of the few author’s I’ve read everything published, and there’s a high percentage of his books I’ve rated 5 stars.

Let’s see. Nine books. 44.44% of them have been rated, by me, five stars. 66.7% have been rated 4 or more stars. Then there are the two I’ve rated three stars. ‘The Blood Flag’, sadly, is one of the ones I rated three stars.

There are many reasons for this 3 star rating. I rather liked the history that was injected, relatively seamlessly. And the overall story itself was show more intriguing. So, what’s up with the 3 star rating? What went wrong? To a large extent it boils down to two things: I just didn’t like the main character, and there was an absurdity – and a somewhat unthinking ‘me see danger, me rush forward pounding fist against chest growling until danger gone’ type of ‘plan’ to defeat the rise of the fourth Reich.

Those two points are tied together, since they are based on the same thing – the main character (and his thought process). The main character is an FBI agent working on counter-terrorism by the name of Kyle Morrissey. The book opens with this main character, Kyle, over in Europe to help his father celebrate and receive a medal (I’ve some vague recollection that a medal was involved, maybe not). Not sure what happened with the father, maybe he immediately hopped a plane and returned home, maybe he just did his own thing, but despite being the reason for being in Europe, his presence was barely felt. Heck, I’m not really 100% certain the guy was actually alive – what with several comments along the line of ‘I bet your father would have been proud.’ I’m not wording this right so let me try again.

Kyle, an FBI agent, is in Europe with his family. Initially over there to help his father celebrate the anniversary of the end of WWII, or the Normandy invasion. After that celebration, Kyle and family, sans Kyle’s father, head out in a car to visit various places. This is not at all detailed. The visit, I mean. One moment is detailed, though. Picture in your mind a family in a car on a city street. Suddenly people pop up, a whole crowd, in front of the car. Wearing KKK like outfits (though I believe the coloration of the robes was different), and Nazi arm-bands. Carrying torches. And utterly silent. You, the driver, start to edge the car backwards. Whereupon another group of robed people pop up. They begin to swarm around and then past your car. Then a flash goes off. Your son has taken a picture. Suddenly one of the robed people rushes forward and screams something in German. He tries to open the door behind which your son sits holding the camera. Failing to get in, he, the robed guy, wanders around and screams at you, the driver. He then begins pounding on the window with his torch. Meanwhile your wife is screaming at you to move (I may have the order of this off slightly), but you just stare straight ahead unmoving. Window breaks. Robed man asks for your keys. You give them. Wife again demands that you don’t do that, to leave. You make some weird response indicating it would be better not to leave. Robed fella wanders back around, opens your child’s car door, demands the camera, takes camera, and breaks it.

This is where my dislike for the main character began. Maybe nothing could have been done; maybe he did the right thing just sitting there. But he was in a car. He was surrounded by people wearing robes, carrying torches and proudly displaying Nazi armbands and banners. In a country where Nazi symbols are outlawed. Naturally I’d just sit in the car horrified by what I was seeing instead of fleeing. Or not. I don’t know. This is the beginning of my appreciation that the main character has poor planning skills and poor ‘spur-of-the-moment’ skills. (Though if he really this bad the book would have turned out quite differently.)

This is also when he becomes obsessed with Neo-Nazism. And it’s spread throughout the world. For a smart guy who works as an FBI agent and on counter-terrorism, he shows massive and alarming lack of knowledge. The guy reacts completely surprised, and may or may not have stated a few times ‘but I thought they all died when the Second World War ended!’ (they or Nazism). Seriously? It’s the character, not the author, because the author provides certain points of interest that the character seemed too naïve and lacking in knowledge to know.

Numerous times throughout this book I made status updates that basically read something like ‘the FBI agent may be the worst FBI agent of all time.’ It’s his attitude to other agents, to his bosses, to confidential informants, to everyone. Some examples: without any plan, he rushes over to visit with a guy who works on domestic terrorism, then practically drags that guy to see that guy’s boss. So that he could be allowed to temporarily help on a case. He had no plan beyond ‘I wish to temporarily work on an assignment’. Naturally the boss said no. Naturally, the FBI agent took that no to be yes. Both from the domestic terrorism boss guy and from the counter-terrorism boss lady (his boss). Both basically say no, to which he heard yes. He then flies around on his own dime doing stuff. Point one; before I provide another example, I kept waiting for this FBI agent to wake up. To have a brain wave. To . . . think coherently for a moment or two. There’s this organization, see, which desires to terrorize and overthrow governments around the world. The agent could not see anything within that concept to grab a hold of and use as a hinge point, an entry point to justify devoting his time, as a counter-terrorism guy? Seriously? Because the book, near the end, gave a very real way he could have had an in, but which he mostly ignored throughout the book. The guy his boss wanted him on ‘24/7’ was in Germany. The guy Kyle was interested in was in Germany. The international meeting of heads of neo-Nazi organizations was going to be in Germany. And, let me use even deeper spoiler for this, the guy Kyle’s boss wanted him on? That was actually his job to monitor? Meet with, conducted business with, and financed to the tune of ‘millions of dollars’ that same guy Kyle really wanted to nail. So, if he had pulled his head out of his head long enough to put 2+2 together . . .

Second example of why I dislike this character because I think he’s a bad FBI agent: Kyle is lead to a confidential informant. To learn more about neo-Nazism in the USA. It’s not his CI. I want to make that clear from the beginning. He’s just there to meet the guy. Kyle then proceeds, once he meets this massively huge mountain of a man, to grill him. ‘What’s your name?’ *given first name* ‘WHAT’S YOUR NAME! (or What’s your last name?’ ‘How did you get here? Exactly?’ By this point the other FBI agent, to which this CI actually is being handled by, finally pulls Kyle back. But . . seriously? What the fuck?

ETA - Oh, and I should note, the guy wasn't stupid. He just didn't think things through and follow his training. Which he acknowledged numerous times in this book. He kept doing stupid things. Being called on it, being reminded that he had had training that covered this issue, and Kyle would acknowledge that he wasn't operating correctly.

One last point – shortly before 9/11, as in the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, I read a book by Huston called ‘Fallout’. It involved terrorist using planes against targets in the USA. The intention, by the terrorist pilots, if I recall correctly, wasn’t to use the planes as ramming devices, but I believe one or more eventually did. They targeted nuclear facilities instead of the twin towers. Still, I read that at some point shortly before 9/11, then saw on my television terrorist driving planes into buildings. I mention this for one specific reason. A series of terrorist attacks occur in this book. I do not recall now, but I believe 60 people die. All in Germany. Coordinated. That same day, hours later, I heard news that terrorists attacked several targets in Paris. 120+ people dead. We live in a world where that really isn’t that remarkable, sadly. That series of coincidences. But still. Creepy. show less