Customer Reviews

Men At War #3. The Soldier Spies

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Soldier Spies is classical but not great W.E.B. Griffin. It has what is fans have come to expect. Heroic characters in an engrossing plot. Language that at its best compares favorably with Herman Wouk and Scott Turow, and at its worse would draw reprimands from most conscientious eight grade English teachers. His faith in the moneyed classes continues unabated as does his rather juvenile view of women. The finish, traditionally weak in Griffin's books is especially limp in this volume. It reads as if he was late for an important social event and chose to stop in mid paragraph. But one reads Griffin for the flow not the finish, and for those of us who are fans, Soldier Spies once again delivers the basic goods. Bottom line: If you started the Men at War series you will enjoy reading the Soldier Spies and will happily purchase the next volume; if only to learn the fates of the spies and soldiers left stranded from Budapest to Manila. If you are new to Griffin start with the Marine Corps series.

Not as good as The Corps books, or written in the searing '90's war fiction style of The Triumph and Glory or the more generally popular Schaara Civil War novels--but Griffin is still Griffin, he knows his stuff.

I normally like war time novels. I have read every one of W.E.B. Griffin's books, some several times. The Men at War series was originally written under his pen name Alec Baldwin, and came before all of his other series. This sequel to those two books is a poor follow-up to the first two. I felt the author was just going through the motions to make another buck after the re-release of the first two books in this series ( under his real name this time). Mr. Griffin, don't take this personally, but you can do a lot better.

Excellent book W.E.B. Griffin is a master story teller. It's just to bad he can never finish a series before going off on a tangent. He really can't care about his readers or he would never have done The Generals which was a terrible book and a very lame attempt to wrap up that series. I wonder which will be the next to join Men at War as an abandoned (for 10 years) series.

You know, even when you consider the Communists under Josef Stalin, the Nazi's and the Third Reich remain to this day the ultimate Darth Vader of our memory. So any story Griffith tells, even this one early in his career, strikes a target rich environment. All the Griffith characters are emboldened with focus and fidelity, and here is no exception.


Griffith's writing skills evolved along with his story telling, plot construction and the ability to hold a few face cards close to his chest so as not to reveal them until page three hundred or thereabout.

My own journey through the prodigous Mr. Griffith was to pick up the first of the Corps series, meet China Marine Ken McCoy, and fasten my seat belt. Then I went to the Army series and started with The Lieutenants. Anyhow that was my approach.

I think if you haven't read him, you ought to start with one of those to see how the plot evolves. Soldier Spies is like seeing a great athlete in stuttering, poorly focused VHS films in the Fifth Grade. You can't really appreciate the whole picture and as in this case, this Griffith novel, without knowing much else, is just average.

Just my observation. 4 stars. Larry Scantlebury

This is a very good book. It had a lot of excitement in the storyline, the characters were very indepth. The characters were as if you knew them your whole life, and by the end of the book you could almost tell the rest of the story yourself, you knew what they said even before you read it. You feel joy for them when they get permoted you feel that you should walk over and shake their hand and congratulate them. When one has to leave his wife or his girlfriend you feel a need to go and comfort them and say it's ok they will be alright. W.E.B. Griffin really knows what he is doing when he wrote this book. At first the book starts off with about four different stories all going on at the same time. This can become rather confusing but the more and more you read the stories one by one come together and everything makes sence. When the stories start coming together that is when it really gets good. If you enjoy books that make you think than you should really consider this book

Like all W.E.B. Griffin books this book shows the personalities of it characters and makes you like them.

I sometimes wonder if Griffin ever develops a new character or a new story line. After reading about 20 of his books everything seems like a tired re-run. It is a wonder we ever won the war with the amount of time that these "super-egos" spend at war.

Griffin started this series years ago and hasn't come anywhere close to finishing it; this book isn't new! The story is great; comon Mr. Griffin, lets get on with the story...........at least the CORPS continues, is it six weeks at a time, every year or so??

I've always enjoyed WEB's work. I recommend another author-- Bob Mayer. His special forces series gives a real insight into the men who now wear the Green Beret.