Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What happened to the American Dream?, January 17, 2009
This review is from: Broken Under Interrogation (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Jeffrey Hopkins presents his version of the American Dream under guise of his novel, "Broken Under Interrogation," and it is not pretty. It is ugly and grotesque and obscene and happens every day in every town and city of America. This book is not an indictment of torture or of the military or war. It is a indictment against lost opportunities, against an America that promises what it cannot fulfill. It is an indictment against drugs and the terrorism that propels drug trafficking. It is the story of the voiceless, the powerless. It is the story of Have-Nots.
Hopkins tells his story in segments through the voice of John Powers, a lethargic, but intelligent youth, who gets lost in himself and under the spell of a domineering father. He joins the military, hoping for Intelligence but not Iraq. He gets both. His job is to scope out spies against the US military and arrange their demise. He is returned to the States during his third tour of duty under questionable circumstances.
Through John's voice, the reader learns about military basic training and the war in Iraq. Both are important background to the last segment of John's life in the States when he trains "useless" war veterans into an army of heroes who fight the war on drugs incognito. There are no rules, no laws, just justice for wasted human lives.
John conceives the idea of such an army as he sits on a bench, observing the devastation of his drug-infested neighborhood. What caused this underworld of Have-Nots? Military life, even war, gives them purpose until they return home. Those born into poverty can see no way out except through drug-induced stupor or the temporary high of riches through the drug business. John takes the powerless, those who tried to grab a piece of the Dream, and creates an army. He is John Powers.
Things go awry, as they always do when violence, guns, torture, and amoral humans are put into the same chaotic, lawless void. Things go very wrong.
A significant point John tells the reader early on is that during a torture session, either party can be broken. There's a moment of incandescence during torture when John realizes how the story will end. He could have said what another character in another time and place said: "The horror! the horror!"
This is not a book for the squeamish.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Brutally Powerful Novel: Possible Predictions, December 19, 2010
Jeffrey Hopkins writes with such brutal force that reading his novel BROKEN UNDER INTERROGATION at first seems a story too explosive to explore. But at the same time his gift for the art of writing prose is so concomitantly eloquent that it is impossible not to stay with him: the trust he offers in the opening chapters, chapters that survey where our country is now and has recently been hit the center of the target of sociological observation. The book is powerful on many levels and while the readers who seek thrillers will be more than satisfied, those of us who look for more than action - for substance that comes from examining the past to reshape the possibilities for the future - there is much to be gained by spending time with this book.
Very briefly the story is told by one John Powers, an Army Intelligence officer who has served multiple assignments in Iraq and returns to Peoria, Illinois, mentally injured by his past and unable to cope with the massive amount of crime that surrounds him at home. He struggles with the fact that society has become populated with youngsters who work in the drug business and the many 'victims' of drug addiction and sets out on a vigilante mission to destroy the problem. He teams with a fellow believer, Miller, in the need to destroy the decadence of the drug gangs, and uses heinous means to destroy that element of society gone wrong. Captured by the police - more a corporate security group in the year 2012 - Powers undergoes torture for what he has considered the only way to correct the evils of the world to which he returned after war. Powers may seem to be a victim of sociopathic transformation due to his war experiences, but the author uses the solid technique of flashbacks to Powers' time in Iraq to make this injured protagonist understandable in his motivations and deeds.
To better appreciate the worth of this writing, writing that may sound as though it is not about something we wish to hear, it is best to quote form the author's gifted pages: 'The gnawing black raven of American nihilism takes wing from the suburbs and flies home to roost in the inner city. It lives, breathes, and takes in nutriment there amongst the abandoned homes and crumbling schools. Without the misery and despair of the ghetto, there would be no impetus for people to flock to the safety of the suburbs. Without the homes abandoned by people moving out of the city center in fear, the low property values caused by the abundance of properties on the market, and the slumlords to buy them up looking for a fast buck - there would be no ghetto. The raven was feeding on racism, and the raven was getting fat. It s**t on the American Dream and pecked out the eyes of hope. John thought to himself, if there was an American Dream it should exist for all Americans, but it didn't, and if it ever did, it was dead and rotten as the Founding Fathers. John could cut the tension around him with a knife....'
Hopkins delves deeply into the topic of torture, relating that topic to the things he witnessed in Iraq as well as to the deeds in which he is engulfed. This portion of the book is as harsh as the torture it describes, as vicious and cruel as any previous books on the subject. Yet Hopkins has the sensitivity to use that topic to find his way out of the bleak reality of now and make us consider just where we are and can go unless we address the evil of the day. Grady Harp, December 10
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quick take is The Punisher meets Fight Club, March 13, 2010
This review is from: Broken Under Interrogation (Paperback)
In the not-so-distant-future, an Iraq vet who specialized in interrogation, returns stateside with his many emotional and mental demons and discovers re-adapting into society just doesn't jive. His demons rise up, he sees the underbelly of his city, and decides to do something about it. Using his interrogation techniques, he slowly moves up the criminal food chain. But this isn't a solo endeavor, and soon a group of specialists are playing vigilante with hints of franchising the operation. And when it goes too far ...
The writing captures the reader very early on and drags them down into the gritty muck of this emotional world during and post military interrogation. That we're witnessing the struggle of the main character as he battles with his past (and present) deeds is where the true breaking point is encountered for the reader. It's one thing to hear reports of certain techniques on the news, but being inside the mind of an interrogator during and after the act is especially chilling. Through this, you can't help but root for the main character as through his partner in this vigilante endeavor, he sees to what end he can truly fall. In this, he realizes he has not yet broken under his demons, but he is close.
The novel is not without flaws, but they are minor. The first half of the novel seems in need of a restructuring, but the second half everything gels and the pace truly takes off. The writer also has a habit of switching between a character's first and last name. Again, once the reader gets used to this, it doesn't pose a problem.
All in all, a good read that will keep you up at night wondering how much the public isn't being told about their interrogation techniques. What's also interesting to note is how the writer foreshadowed events in the Middle East. The novel was written in '08. It'll be frightening to see how many more of his predictions turn out to be correct.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
