Dead Fall

The story begins with a bang and the thrill continues until the final chapter. Although the plot premise was taken from recent news stories about the Ukraine War, don't assume that this is all you will get from reading the book. The Ukraine War is merely the framework for the story. The reader gets an original, spine tingling story with plenty of action from the author's imagination.

The series main character is Scot Harvath. He has always been bold, brash and lethal. In Dead Fall Harvath is surprisingly underequipped with weapons and doesn't have his usual team of spies to help him. Dare I say that he seems somewhat humble from finding himself in this situation? I was not surprised, though, to see him finding the resources that he show more needs to get the job done. The reader sees more of Harvath's intelligence here as he figures out what each of his steps are going to be in order to finish the mission.

The Ravens are Thor's fictional version of the Wagner Group. While we all have read about Wagner's barbarity from the news, the information we get about the Ravens is complete. The reader learns more about their movements and how they make decisions. Even the barbarity of their treatment of the Ukrainians has much more detail than what we read in the news concerning the Wagner Group.

Dead Fall is a gripping novel and I highly recommend it. show less

Least favorite in the series by far. This one had some good moments but I feel some characters need to have forward momentum and growth. Have not seen that from James Reece. Plus I hate cliffhangers. It’s the cheapest way to get people to buy the next book.

Rescue in Ukraine
Review of the Simon & Schuster audiobook (July 25, 2023) narrated by Armand Schultz and released simultaneously with the Atria/Emily Bestler hardcover/ebook.

I actually finished this months ago but couldn't think of anything much to say about it. But I need to catch up reviews in the windup of 2023, so here we go regardless. This novel is in the genre of military fantasy where an American woman of Ukrainian heritage has gone to Ukraine to as an aid worker and is then caught up in the Russian invasion of February 2022. She has been kidnapped by a rogue unit of Russian mercenaries who are working on looting the countryside. The one man unit of Scot Harvath is sent in to rescue her. But he does have assistance from show more Ukrainian forces.

I hadn't previously read any of Brad Thor's Scot Harvath books of which this is the 22nd. Harvath is getting a bit long in the tooth for these sorts of outings but the current Russia/Ukraine War was a real world element which could be exploited for the series. It is pretty much cookie-cutter impossible mission force with the unlikely survival of the protagonists in bleak circumstances. The villains are of course completely unredeemable criminals recruited from Russian prisons and institutions, somewhat like the real-life Wagner Group.

The narration by Armand Schultz was excellent in all voices. I hadn't previously encountered Schultz as a narrator, but he seems to specialize in military / special forces series such as those of Mitch Rapp and Scot Harvath.

I read this out of curiosity due to its being situated in Ukraine.

Trivia and Link
I did notice that the cover image of the Atria and Simon & Schuster editions featured a crow sitting on top of a statue's wingtip. The shape of the wingtip looks like it is probably modelled after the right wing of the Berehynia figure on Kviv's Independence Square monument.
See photograph at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Statue_of_Berehynia.jp...
The figure of Slavic goddess Berehynia at the top of the Ukrainian Independence Square monument. Image sourced from Wikipedia credited to photographer Amit just amit - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link. show less

Scot Harvath Series, The - Book 22