Customer Reviews

Detachment Delta: Punitive Strike

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

 

 

I didn't pick up this book looking for Tolstoy's "War and Peace." I new it was fluff, but adventure fluff, and that's OK. I do, though, like to believe that when an author writes a book, s/he does some research, were the author not an authority to start. Sasser claims past background in Special Forces. This made me want to believe, to some extent, his descriptions of Special Ops as portrayed in the book. He was off.

What set my reading Geiger counter off, though, was how he messed up his references to languages used by the "bad guys," and the American translators. One example, alone, suffices: The FBI SAIC in Cairo, who's assigned to the task force investigating the attack on the ship, speaks the local language in Egypt (and Yemen), which is Arabic. The female officer, the Delta translator, talks to him in Farsi. Whereon, he replies,"...From the way she talks she could have been born in Baghdad..." A heck of a praising comment, but off. Farsi is the language of Iran, not Iraq, although spoken in parts of Afghanistan, also. It is NOT the language of Yemen. And there was no reason to believe that the agent spoke Farsi.

There were other linguistic gaffs, and each one deterred from enjoyment of the book. I began to wonder whether a super market newspaper was his source of information.

I would not have given this book one star but that was not an option. To say that the writing is mediocre is being much too kind.

I have read the author's book "One Shot, One Kill" and thought that it was quite good. Based on that, I thought that there would be some factual basis for this book and hopeful series. His research into al Qaeda and bin Laden are actually pretty good. Unfortunately, he falls into the trap of vilifying and degrading all Arabs within the book. This makes the "bad guys" so shallow as to be one dimensional at best.

The main character, Major Brandon Kragle, is not typical of officers within Delta or US Special Forces (although he is supposed to be both.) To say that this character is contrived would probably be true but does not go nearly far enough. Just let it stand that Kragle would not have made it through the psych eval for Delta let alone been able to stay in the unit.

Two more points that bring out the poor quality of this book. First, Kragles brother is "put" into Delta as an operator but apparently has not had to go through selection to get there. Sorry, but this just could not and would not happen. Second, the author takes a page our of "The Dirty Dozen" and uses rhymes for the aaault force. If this were not so ludicrous it might be amusing but it places the Delta operators in the absolute worse possible light.

The author may have 13 years in SF but I have to wonder if he was ever a member of an ODA? He certainly shows that he knows little about Delta or AFSOF.

Another reviewer stated that if "Delta Force fellows really are this stupid ...", well they aren't nor are they as incompetent as the author would have you believe in this book.

First off, I loved Sasser's SEALs books (No Man's Land and Hangman), written under the pseudonym Mike Martell. I found them exceptionally realistic and an accurate depiction of SpecWar operators and clandestine warfare in general. They read much like many non-fiction books on Special Forces operations.
The Detachment Delta series books do not. They have a Hollywood-esque dramatic feel that lends nothing to credibility and had me rolling my eyes all the time. They are also significantly lacking in the realism of the Martell books, when pertaining to small unit tactics and real world mission scenarios. It was quite honestly painful to read. "Delta" is portrayed in the most unrealistic way I could imagine. Frequent technical errors (Navy F16's?, Delta Chaplains?), convoluted plots, weak characters, contrived dialogue and a handful of other crap made this book hard to get through. If you have any prior experience or knowledge of special operations forces, even if you once caught the last 10 minutes of a History channel program about Green Berets while waiting for the next annoying episode of Pawn Stars, you'll find the authenticiy of this book leaves a lot to be desired.
I found the great majority of the main characters nearly impossible to identify with. This is more like a list of SF rejects who never got past the Q Course at the Kennedy Special Warfare School, much less the cream of the Tier 1 crop.
Again, I reccomend the Mike Martell books he wrote!

The Author was supposed to have been in the military for 20 years, and special forces for 13 of those years. However, there are so many mistakes, it is hard to believe he ever served in the military. For example, he has F-16 flying off a Navy Carrier. Only the Air Force flys F-16's, and not off of Aircraft Carriers. The Navy flys F-18's and F-14's, but not F- 16's. The lack of technical realism, combined with poor plot development, weak characters, and a good dose of woman hating ruined the book for me.

In addition to the other comments made by those who gave this book a low grade, I too am unable to give more than 2 stars for this book. One star is for the author simply having the wherewithall to write and publish a book. Understanding that this is not an effort to write a prize winning book, I give it a second star for a reasonably entertaining story. My dislikes were for one, the 'Aunt Jamima' treatment of the 'maid/mother figure' in the story. Given a little more character development she could of been a stronger part of the story. And two, though it may be ticky-tack, but last check the navy does not operate F-16s from carriers. But I did enjoy and agree with the two-faced, self-serving, back-stabbing portrail of the politians in the story. The author must know some people in Washington! I was also dissappointed in the loss of the female in the story after playing such a big role through most of the story. It would of been a good book with a little more attention to detail. Could of been a good book with the storyline. Should of been a good book from the jacket info. But it ended up just ok.

I couldn't put this one down until I read to the end. Sasser must have had his crystal ball in front of him (He wrote this BEFORE the 9/11 attacks.) when he wrote this story of war against terrorists and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qeada organization. Besides the page-turning suspense and conflict, Sasser, shows a great deal of the frustration that our military leaders have with politicians. This was a good read. I can't wait for the next book in this new series.

I found this book to be captivating and hard to put down. It certainly slams the appropriate politicans that for 8 years jammed up the US military and put us in jeopardy for 0911/01.
The family connections of the key players was a little hard to swallow, but it is hard to find good books about the Delta Force, and I enjoyed this one.

Incredible read! Would easily compare to Clancy. Can't wait for the next in the series.