Customer Reviews

Operation Fantasy Plan: A Novel

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

 

 

This is just a review to get my views off my chest. I'm sure no one will read a review on a book 10 years old that wasn't a best seller to begin with. The author is a HUMINT wannabee who did overt debriefing for DIA in Thailand. I heard him on radio in Kansas City when the book was out. His interview, his website and all the reviews I have read reinforce the idea that the author wouldn't know an intelligence operation if it ran over him in parkiong lot. He is one of a long line of authors who inflate their credentials and intimate connections with the CIA that just don't exist. I spent 3 years at one the Agency's Bases in Thailand about the same time the author was in Bangkok with DOD and can tell you nothing rings true. He now works for a skip trace company looking for husbands who have run away from the trailer park. That probably challenges the poor slub's Tradecraft skills. There I vented, it feels good.

This is a well crafted thriller, all the more disturbing by the fact that it is true. Beautifully written with astounding honesty. You will not be able to put this little gem down. Gilboy is the undisputed master at storytelling.

I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. It has aspects of a spy thriller, but it also is a well-drawn character study of a man whose re-assessing what his choices in life have resulted in. And he seeks a chance for redemption of past sins.

While the thriller portions are pretty standard fare, I foun the main character's journey thought-provoking. worth a look for those seeking a more intelligent thriller, but those seeking merely slam-bang action will be disappointed.

It is no less thrilling than the best of the spy genre: a real page turner. But Operation Fantasy Plan reminds me, too, of the best Russian literature -- Dostoevsky comes to mind.

Peter Gaines (the protaganist) is constantly driven to action. At the same time he is forced to question the very meaning of humanity and morality, exploring the questions of what is good and evil (if even there is such a thing) and of what differentiates love from lust (if anything). You'll have to decide for yourself whether Gaines chooses the best path in the end, and you will be thinking about it for a long time after.

This is another boonie dog book review from Wolfie and Kansas. The plot of Peter Gilboy's "Operation Fantasy Plan" is similar to an idea that was circulating around Guam. The Mayor of Yigo, a village in northern Guam, professed concern about boonie dogs allegedly raiding trash cans and barking at caniphobes. He proposed tying up a female dog in heat in the middle of an open field, using her as bait to catch male boonie dogs. We boonie dogs came up with the counterproposal of tying up a hot human female in the middle of an open field, and seeing how many mayors and other politicians we could catch. In "Operation Fantasy Plan", the CIA uses a plan similar to ours, setting up a brothel in Bangkok to entrap and blackmail prominent humans.

While a one-sentence description of the plot of "Operation Fantasy Plan" makes it sound like a collaberation between Ian Fleming and A.N. Roquelaure, this is actually more of a John LeCarre-type book. Gilboy focuses on the psychology of the main character, an obsessed ex-spy who seeks to make amends for his involvement in the Fantasy Plan, and on the morality of an ends-justifies-any-means intelligence policy. While "Operation Fantasy Plan" was not the light read we expected, it is an interesting, well-paced book.

Generally, I want more substance from a novel than a spy thriller has to offer. Not so with Peter Gilboy's debut, OPERATION FANTASY PLAN. This book is a beautifully crafted, thoughtful, intriguing, tastefully sensual piece. Set in Washington and Thailand, the novels explores the implications of a complex scheme to entangle Japanese leaders in compromising sexual encounters that will later be used to coerce information and cooperation with the CIA.

The book's central character, Peter Gaines, is at times a hero and at times a scoundrel. Gilboy artfully extracts the complex and conflicting loyalties, thoughts and passions of Gaines as he explores the ethical limits of what the CIA can and will do to protect our national (economic) interests. A must read for those who bemoan the loss of the Soviet threat and for those who might enjoy a page turner if it had something of substance to say.