Customer Reviews

Intercept

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This was the first Patrick Robinson book I've read and was very disappointed. There were a lot of sloppy errors in this book, that should have been caught by the author or a good editor. For example: Islamic Militants do NOT eat pork products and the Mosad never confirms, never denies, etc.

If this book was cut to 250 pages, the story would have been tighter and the unnecessary filler would make for better action.

While I agree strongly with Mr. Robinson's political views concerning terrorism, his writing left me wanting. I am an old jarhead -24 years in the Corps--- and have worked with the SEAL and other special ops people, but Lt. Cmd. Bedford's recon of a farm house without a weapon, and then letting an assailant sneak up and grab him is unbelievable. He would have to be dumber than a wall. His mission was to kill the four terrorist not play silly ass games, which if they went astray would have killed school kids and their parents.

There were other improbable scenes, but I have already wasted too much time reading Intercept to go over them. I have never heard of a Sig Saur 9 mm. revolver, and I seriously doubt that the ex SEAL would carry a revolver except as a small back up weapon. There was also mention of a magazine with the revolver. How you use a magazine of 9 mm. ammo with a revolver is hard to imagine.
The excessive background of every minor character moves the action along at a snail's pace.

Mr. Robinson has impressive credentials, but this effort is a failure.

This is the second Navy SEAL thriller in the Mack Bedford series. It focuses on the very contentious issue of Guantanamo Bay, and makes a strong case there's still seething unrest in the Middle East. The great danger the novel explores is the USA taking it's eye off the ball, and softening its grip on al-Qaeda.

The novel, in typical Robinson fashion, is fast-paced, filled with thrilling Navy SEAL action, murder, mayhem and a gripping plot that is frankly impossible to put down. Robinson fans from the Morgan thrillers will undoubtedly love this newer, fresher series, that is more character focused, and deals with cutting-edge dangers in modern warfare.

The book deserves to hit the best seller list, and people everywhere should start considering Patrick Robinson in the same league as Clancy, Paterson and Grisham. His books are simply brilliant.

Midway through this book, I had to stop reading it. I have tortured myself in finishing Robinson's other books. See my 1-star reviews of "To the Death," "Diamondhead," "Ghost Force," and "Scimitar SL-2." Every one of those books were not worth the hours I spent on them. This one, I had to call it quits.

Robinson fancies himself as a thriller writer with knowledge of how intelligence is collected and analyzed by different agencies across the world. Here's the part I stopped reading at. There is an "intercept" of a phone call with the acronym MCM, and what looks like a street address. The premise is that the bad guys are Islamic fundamentalists. The receiver of this message immediately knows that this is a street address of an Islamic center in Mexico. However, in the totally idiotic world that Robinson lives in, the entire NSA, CIA, and British intelligence can't come up with the same conclusion. I guess they fired all their middle-eastern analysts. My first thought was, "Hello! Google the damn thing! Search for <MCM AND street address> and see what comes up!!"

And AGAIN - Robinson writes dialogue that no one in their right mind ever speaks. NO one talks like people in his books. It is so plainly dumb that I feel my IQ slipping points every time I turn the page. I remember Hardy Boys being better written.

Mr. Robinson - do you ever venture here to read these reviews? A piece of advice: Please spend a few weeks at a writing clinic. You need help with dialogue, plot development, pacing, grammar.. heck.. just in how to write.

I hope the bad guys got caught in the end, and America survives the latest assault on its freedom. Its too late for us to be saved from the pen of Mr. Robinson.

As others have already remarked, the book is replete with typos, grammatical errors, subject-verb agreement, number confusion, etc. Everybody needs a proofreader--Robinson appears not to have had the services of one available to him.
I live in Connecticut, and the sloppiness is apparent here as well, as he describes the routes traveled by the main characters. If one is taking the Hutch from New York into Connecticut, one doesn't go through Danbury and Waterbury. The Hutch feeds directly into the Merritt Parkway at Greenwich. I-684 leads into I-84, which is the route through Danbury and Waterbury, and then up State Route 8 to Torrington. However, I-684 cuts off the Hutch before the Connecticut state line. Also, Robinson has his characters leaving Torrington on I-7. Sorry--but it's U.S. 7, and it's a lovely drive, but anyone who wants to make time, would be better advised to continue north on Route 8 to Winstead, and then take U.S. 44 to U.S. 7. In either case, you wouldn't make very good time.
Now--here's a serious error: at one point in the book Robinson has Mack Bedford saying "Over and out." I'm a retired naval officer, and every time I hear that phrase, it's like someone running his fingernails down the blackboard. It's either "over" or "out." Never both. Never. And Mack, being an experienced naval officer, would never make such an error. I asked me son, an Army officer, what he would do if he heard someone say: "over and out," and he responded that it wouldn't be a problem, simply because no one would ever do it. Robinson needs to do his homework a bit better.
Now, for the really serious part: Mack solves his major problems always as easily as Tom Swift did. After a bit of logic, piecing the puzzle together, Mack always finds his quarry and kills them before they have a chance to do any real damage. My opinion: Robinson's earlier novels held together better than his latest works. He spins a good yarn, he needs to tighten his prose somewhat and pay a bit more attention to detail.

I have enjoyed most all Patrick Robinson novels but this is an endless biography of each character that seems to never end. Suspense? There's a trickle every now and then yet it borderlines dullness more than suspense. The book is 334 pages long. One feels something is about to take place near page 280 but the tale continues to trudge along at a turtles pace. There are profound errors that cannot be explained as to why PR let them slip onto the pages that leaves the reader shaking their head in disappointment. Sorry, PR but Inception only gets 2 *'s. Hope you do better next time or you've lost a reader.

I enjoyed some of Intercept and it was a quick read, a good premise but I can really only give it 3 stars. I like Robinson's style but too often there is just too much narrative and unneeded details and story holes. I think the biggest point Robinson makes is that these Terrorists are just that...terrorists. Killers. Their mission and life's pursuit is simply indiscriminate killing of people, especially Americans of any kind or age. We are not going to rehibilitate them and they certainly should not be the beneficiaries of the Rights given to American citizens and they belong in Military Courts and in Military Prisons. If we free them they will only go back to Al Quaeda to try to kill Americans again.

I found Robinson's endless narrative to really get in the way of the story and it bogs down many times. He also has to tell us innumberable times just how "super great" the Navy Seals are and that gets tedious. Don't tell us in the narrative--show us. Many aspects to this story are not well thought out which gives the reader a "Huh? Run that by me again". There are so many words spelled wrong and errors and typos too. Not much care went into this book and should have been half as long as it was.


SPOILERS. SPOILERS. SPOILERS: Some things are just so glaringly poorly thought out that this is only an OK read. At times a stupid read. I'll be brief: Here is one: The terrorists buy a farm in North West Conneticut. They buy it in only one day for a Million and they get to work building the bombs immediately. They post a guard who spots Mack (Mr Navy Seal) lurking on the property and of course this armed terrorist sneaks up on Mack and has his hip shattered by Mack. Over the next 4 nights Mack bumps into others and these terrorists never even begin to think that someody has them in their sights. Anyone would know they were being watched and somehow the terrorists keep building the bombs and think no one had discovered them. Oh come on. Does that make any sense at all? The terrorists ain't that stupid. They would have split on Day One...or Two.

I actually tend to like books with a theme similar to Intercept. Robinson starts out with a good premise and is pretty good at flushing out characters and providing wordy scene descriptions, but that's about it. The book gets 100% for unnecessary trivia and the plot has more holes than swiss cheese. If Navy Seals actually operated like this guy they would all be dead. Robinson actually confuses GPS locators with radar!! I get the impression that the book was quickly written for a deadline which interfered with creating a realistic plot.

The action portions of this novel are very good, but the political viewpoints of Patrick Robinson intrude to a point where reading the novel becomes tedious. His hero worship of W and Rummey are more than annoying, and his constant carping about that "left wing" current president and the rule of law in the United States are even worse. I once read Robinson's writing with pleasure, but he has made the transition from action-adventure to political commentary. Robinson can write, but his editors need to remind him that he is writing fiction novels, not op-ed columns for a conservative Republican audience. Until he gets the message, his novels are not worth paying good money for.

Perhaps Mr. Robinson enjoyed Brad Thor's 2007
book entitled The First Commandment, that he
decided to write his own version.In Thor's
book 5 terrorists are freed from Guantanemo
and the hero has to find them.Sounds like a
familiar story doesn't it?
Read Thor's book.It's much better.