Customer Reviews

The Honor of Spies (Honor Bound)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I bought this book last week and I'm almost finished reading it...a very, very good book. But THE MAIN REASON I'm writing this is my very low opinion of The Traffickers which I posted here two weeks ago. The Traffickers was obviously not written by Griffin himself...the only shadow of him in the book was the characters and the localities; it was way too wordy and disjointed....borderline boring. I thought Griffin had become a shill for his son, Butterworth, and that the good ole days were gone.

I WAS WRONG! This book is among the best Griffin books. If it was partially written by Mr. Butterworth he has been paying attention in his dad's school! This is a superb book in the good old W. E. B Griffin mold....pure entertainment but very well done. If this is Butterworth's work we are in good hands. If it isn't we need to send Griffin some big vitamin pills so he stays with us forever.

I found the two books written in collaboration with WEB IV in the Men at War series to be so bad that I had decided not to buy any more Griffin books that he was a part of. But since I had read the other books in the Honor Bound series and enjoyed them I thought I would give it a go but I wasn't too hopeful. My impression was that Daddy had been trying to hand off a money making franchise to WEB IV who clearly did not have the story telling or writing skills of the old man. Well I'm glad to say that this volume was up to the standards of previous efforts in this series. I did not get the same sense that I did with The Saboteurs & The Double Agents and my perception is that WEB was much more involved. At least I really enjoyed this book. It is only a three because it is pretty light reading. On my own personal pleasure scale it would be closer to a four if you are into WEB. There are a lot of story lines left to be followed up in this series if WEB can keep up the pace and WEB IV stays out of it. Any chance of seeing more of "Killer" McCoy?

This is an excellent addition to the Honor Bound series, written in the marvelous, action-packed Griffin style. Griffin packs in a wonderful combination of WWII, Argentine and American history. Cletus Frade continuous to support both the American and Argentinian causes, and the heroic saga continues, with Juan Peron continuing to emerge as a less than desirable leader of Argentina. The bad guys and good guys battle it out in Argentina, while Eva (Evita) Duarte starts to exercise her influence on Juan Peron. Another great Griffin story with heroes and villains on almost all sides.

I have to agree wholeheartedly with "bonanza bucko". This is a classic Griffin novel. If junior had any hand in it, it was so little that it was unnoticed by me. Seems that all he had to do with it was to put his name on the book as co-author in hopes that some of his writings will get read by association with his dad. Hopefully Mr. Griffin is in good health and will continue to write these great novels for many more years. I would love to see a new one in the Corp series and the presidential agent series. Mr. Griffin, if you read these reviews I hope you keep junior's hands off your writing in the future 'cause he just can't write.

There was a time when I got excited at the prospect of curling up with a new W.E.B. Griffin novel.

No longer.

"The Honor Of Spies" is the sixth straight dud to come from the team of W.E.B. Griffin and his son, William E. Butterworth IV.

This is the fifth entry in the "Honor Bound" series. The entire series is weak and does not compare with Griffin's great series "Brotherhood Of War", "The Corps" and the first four "Men At War" books.

Griffin (whose birth name is William Edmund Butterworth III) was born in 1929 and is obviously getting on in years. Several years back, he brought his son, William E. Butterworth IV, on board to help continue his franchise. The son was the editor of Boy's Life, the official magazine of the Boy Scouts Of America.

Things have not gone well.

Griffin's military novels were marked by engrossing, memorable characters who transitioned well from one book to another. Many of the characters had to be wealthy in order to provide them the freedom of action they needed in their fictional roles and perhaps more importantly, the high level contacts. One of his best characters was the wealthy owner of a shipping line serving as the personal troubleshooter for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A brilliant way to avoid constraining the character by factual history while using the very same character to deliver the factual history. Griffin knew how to tell a story, deftly interspersing narrative with action.

Since teaming with his son, however, the thrill is gone.

I managed only 58 pages of this book. Most of those pages were reprises of the four previous novels and, frankly, did nothing to bring the first-time reader up to speed or advance the story. The storyline itself is unbelievable. Poor little rich boy Cletus Frade, one-time Marine fighter ace, now working for the legendary OSS, is babysitting asylum seeking employees of the German embassy. Frade is supposed to get them, the husband and wife Froggers, to spill the beans on German secret plots in Argentina. The idea that this pair of relatively low-level embassy employees would be involved in the innermost details of the Nazi leadership's secret plans is ludicrous. Reducing the plot to pure silliness is the happy happenstance that the Frogger's son, a German Wehrmacht officer, just happens to be involved in yet another secret plot and just happens to be in an American prisoner of war camp.

Most of the book is talk, pure yakkity-yak. Famous people were always cleverly inserted in cameo or greater roles in Griffin books and this one is no different, except that the device falls flat. Within the few pages I read, Juan Peron, Howard Hughes and Allan Dulles all make appearances to little effect.

Griffin used to write believable combat action scenes.

Not any more.

By page 58, about a dozen bodies pile up in scenes that have all the tension of buying a loaf of bread.

I was quickly bored, kept on plugging and threw in the towel at page 58. I scanned the rest of the book, more than another 400 pages, and it is more of the same and worse. Hitler, Himmler and other Nazi leaders hold forth with imaginary - and unbelievable - discussions. Action is sparse - and unbelievable.

In all, I have read 36 W.E.B. Griffin novels. The first 30 written by Griffin the elder were mostly terrific.

The last six, including "The Honor Of Spies" have been disappointing in the extreme.

Jerry

I have read almost everything that Griffin has written - including all previous books in this series. I tried, really tried to get through this one and finally gave up a little over half way through. I just wasn't going anywhere. I'll probably give it another chance sometime in the future and probably get through it, especially if I can figure out where I stopped. It isn't bad, it just seems to not make any forward progress. A 24 year old - really doesn't have enough life's experiences to do what Cletus Frade is supposed to be doing physically or socially

I have to agree with the other reviewers, this is a great additional to The Honor Bound series. I hope to see more of this series soon. I think this is one of the first that shows the collaboration between father and son is going to work and we can keep seeing these books in the future.

I only have one small bone to pick, dealing with the Kindle version. The various "messages" were treated as photos in that version, and I had to use a magnifying glass to read them. I hope Amazon can find a way to cure this minor problem in the future.

redundant. repetitive. blah. blah. blah. this book is all excerpts of prior books in this series; and what isnt excerpts is repetitive. it's pretty sad when the only action in a book that is a new action is vomiting and trying to reach the flush chain while on your knees. it is the worst fifteen dollars i have spent for a long time; and while t am 82 percent into this book, it will be a book i wont waste any more of my time on to finish it . mr w.e.b. griffen i own almost all your books; and this book is more unforgiveable than your police series when you went from 1973 to 2000; with no warning your charactters were using cell phones and laptops; they had been using phone booths and typewriters. what do you think? all your readers are morons? get it together mr griffen and son; or soon your auddience will move on.

First let me say I'm hooked on Griffin. I've read all of his books in all of the series & it isn't like he has changed his style. It's just that the new books seem to have less & less new material. Unfortunately you only have to read the last 75 pages of "The Honor of Spies" to get everything new out of this book. Rehashing past history through first two thirds of the book is getting old. I wish they would put a little more effort into future books.

This book is a continuation of the story line already established for the Honor Bound series by Griffin. Frade et al continue their anti-Nazi operations in South America, largely on their own, and without much help from the OSS in Washington, DC.

Unfortunately, this is one of the books that Griffin (the nom de plume of W.E. Butterworth III) has written with his son - thus there is less character development and the descriptions of places, food, etc are very sparse.

The plot is well thought out and elaborate in its detail - but there is little flesh on the bone; which seems to be the norm for those books Griffin writes with his son.

Buy it if you are already "into" the series - but otherwise - probably not. There are better books being written - something I would not have said about the books written by Griffin himself.

I must say, the proof reading was well done and I spotted only one error.