Customer Reviews

Sledgehammer

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

 

 

I bought this book 20 years ago and must have read it at least once a year since. Every time I pick it up I get drawn back in to the characters and plot.

Wager has such a cinematic style I can't understand why this has never been a major film. Although considering the mess they made of Telefon and Twilight's Last Gleaming perhaps its just as well.

A group of WW2 SOE veterans use their training to avenge the murder of a comrade in a mob-run town. Taking the view that it is "enemy held territory" they take on the mob boss and the corrupt local police and recruit the local citizens as a resistance army.

this book is a reissue of an excellent book. A group of highly trained adventurers from WWII come together to avenge the death of a colleague. They return from normal lives they had assumed and set about trying to reform a corrupt city.

Of all Wager's books that I've read, this is by far the worst. The Tunnel, Otto's Boy, and 58 Minutes were exciting reads with good plots and page turning narrative. This book falls far short of those other two with its wafer-thin characters and annoyingly condescending tone. Also, for an action-thriller this book has a lot of space taken up by Wager's political opinions and societal observations of late 1960's America, which is when this book was written.

I only recommend this book for die-hard Wager fans. And, yes, that pun was intended.