Customer Reviews

Code of Honor

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Just two minor quibbles, the first being the slightly cartoonish Lane character who was predictable and stereotyped every step of the way despite some attempt to flesh him out, second being a hurried ending that closed the court martial with a footnote rather than the big bang that it was building up towards.

However, these are small issues. Coyle's take on the Colombian drug war is arguably superior to its equivalents in Tom Clancy's overplotted Clear and Present Danger and Ralph Peters' Twilight of Heroes. Other than Lane, all other characters are well-realised and the gripping narrative is tinged with an affecting touch of sadness. Emotions practically exploded off the pages after the tragic fiasco in the jungle.

I regard this novel as one of the best post-Cold War technothrillers, if it can be called that. Although the genre effectively lay down and died due to the paucity of credible sparring opponents for the might of the US, Code Of Honour shines like a rare gem in the overall decline. Highly recommended.

Harold Coyle was a military officer and thus knows how to protray military action and the reactions of the men and women caught up in the organized chaos that is war. He also shows how in a peacetime military a talented rank climber with decent admin skills and good performance in war games can get command of a frontline divivsion. No imcompetance here folks, just the Peter-principal in action. Cpt. Kozack's actions are not unusual givin the circumstances nor would be Gen. Lane's but to be fair to the Dog-faces (I'm a Jarhead) I believe that once Lane's incompetance was shown, the good captain would get off easily. Sure, she wouldn't get a medal but her career would survive and Lane would become a glorified gofer in the puzzle palace. The interplay between a hero-general, his protage, and a well connented politician in uniform is very well played out if ending in a bit of a anti-climax. But it must be said that these things often end this way.

Were Coyle again goes wrong in on his political background (he did the same in TEN THOUSAND: seven barely adequately trained divisions vs. even one crack US division and the USN, USMC and ASAF air wings (who would have been brought in)? Come on!). First of all FARC (as pretty much everyone, even THEM, admits) is the worlds largest single suppliers of cocaine in the world (70%). They also engage routinely in massacres, kidnapping, and extortion. Sure the right-wing paramilitaries also do these three things, but even Amnesty International admits that FARC has them beat. Thus to my mind making FARC so bloody pure is a stretch to astound Mr. Fantastic and bit insulting really, not to mention odd for such a Army veteran. I chalk it up to literary stretching for sake of story (as I did for the TEN THOUSAND) but I hope that in the future that Major Coyle will change the names of his background organizations enabling readers to suspend belief easier.

Code of Honor is a cautionary book on sending American troops to other countries without a clear objective. Not too different from Vietnam. I think Coyle romanticizes rebel life a little too much. This romanticism is shown from the eyes of a former teacher-now-turned FARC rebel. The book could have been more objective in that the rebels are nowhere morally better than the government. They'd actually be into kidnap, and extortion.

After the previous book, The Ten Thousand, the tension between mainstays Dixon and Jan Fields is much less. And not much is explored with Capt. Nancy Kozak and her beau. I shall miss one of the familiar characters in the series. The story feels lacking and it could be due to limiting the story to about 500+ pages.

it's a book that will leave you frustrated and yet somehow elated at the results. Two U.S. Army Generals face off behind the scenes of a ficticous quagmire war based in Columbia, with the lives and careers of Army officers at stake.

Code of Honor wasn't too bad. It had some action, but mostly it centered around a U.S. General named C.B. Lane who is a cowardly bureaucrat and the main character's of most of Coyle's previous novels who are fighting a guerilla-type war in Columbia. There wasn't nearly as much action as in the author's previous books, and the end left a lot of business unfinished, but it was still an acceptable read

This was the most disturbing of the Coyle novels tracing the path of the modern military through the major characters. Since Coyle is a professional soldier, his stories ring true. This makes this tale of the betrayal of field soldiers by opportunistic military beurocrats worrisome, evoking memories of the Vietnam Breakdown(see David Hackworth and Anthony Herbert), which we were assured had been corracted. Since Maj. Coyle is now retired and writing Civil War novels I infer that this is the case. A good read about a familiar theme in the US military