Special Ops: A Brotherhood of War Novel [Large Print] [Hardcover]

W. E. B. Griffin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2001

W.E.B. Griffin returns to the series that launched his phenomenal career-- in an explosive new novel that pits a team of Special Forces warriors against the legendary revolutionary Che Guevara.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Bestselling author W.E.B. Griffin, whose novels about various branches of the military have won him battalions of fans, returns to the Brotherhood of War series with this crackling yarn. A detachment of Special Forces hotshots teams up with presidential counselor Sandy Felter to put a stop to Che Guevara's attempts to "liberate" the Congo from President Joseph Mobutu's anticommunist government.

Under Felter's direction, the Green Berets dispatch a special detachment to the Congo. Their mission is to convince Mobutu of the wisdom of the American plan to discredit and humiliate Che and his Cuban troops, rather than martyr him, and thus bring an end to his plan to export Castro-style communism to Africa and South America. Repelling the Simba insurgents with help from forces led by South African mercenary Mike Hoare, Mobutu accepts the plan, along with the Green Beret's covert assistance, war materiel, and a fighting force manned by many of the characters who peopled The Aviators, Griffin's last Brotherhood adventure. Yes, fans, the good guys are back--especially flying ace Jack Portet, (a pilot drafted into the army right out of Leopoldville, where he was helping his father run a regional airline), George Washington "Father" Lunsford, and Master Sergeant "Doubting" Thomas. And a lot of them are black, a talented crew of African American airmen and specialists pressed into the Special Forces not just because they're brave and able but because they can pass as Congolese soldiers and thereby keep the American presence under wraps.

As a matter of historical fact Guevara failed badly in the Congo, and after retreating to Cuba, tried the same gambit in Bolivia, where he eventually died under fire and gained the martyrdom the U.S. tried so hard to prevent. But Special Ops offers a close-up look at a little-known piece of military history in a gloriously testosterone-pumped epic, seasoned with a touch of sex and romance. That may seem incongruous, given Griffin's clipped, terse writing style, which is punctuated with plenty of military dispatches and a few gratuitous growls at the internecine rivalry among American intelligence agencies. It's even more incongruous when the general's daughter gets the flying ace, and her father's highly placed friends not only get Portet an officer's stripes but fly her to the Congo to stand by her man. But none of that will stop Griffin's delighted readers from snapping up his latest chronicle of men at war. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Newly initiated readers of Griffin (The Fighting Agents) will find the latest in the Brotherhood of War series strongly reminiscent of modern American military classics From Here to Eternity and The Winds of War. Longtime Griffin faithful, eager since 1988's The Aviators for the next BOW installment, will deem this '60s action drama well worth the wait. Fresh from disobeying orders on a rescue mission to the Congo in November 1964 (and receiving two medals for his heroic efforts), former airline pilotDnow Green Beret Sgt.DJack Portet is promoted to lieutenant and assigned to Top Secret Special Operations under Col. Sanford T. Felter, adviser to the president. CIA sources report that Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara is going to the Congo to establish a major Communist foothold in Africa, before moving on to South America. LBJ, with counsel from Felter, decides that it would be better politics to humiliate Guevara in the Congo than to elevate him to martyr status by killing him. To that end, Portet, Felton and Maj. George Washington "Father" Lunsford persuade Joseph Mobutu, president of the Republic of the Congo, to allow a crack unit of African-American Green Berets, all fluent in Swahili, to carry out the assignment. The Special Ops manage to chase Che out of Africa only to see him try to gain power in Bolivia. His writing enriched by new, fully developed characters, Griffin also reprises BOW favorites Craig Lowell, Robert Bellmon, Geoff Craig and William "Doubting" Thomas as he renders an intricately layered, epic novel of the fascinating machinations of international politics and the life and passions of the men who make it happen. Given Griffin's track record with military adventureDhe launched the Lieutenants of the Brotherhood in 1982Dthe audience for this rouser is ready and waiting. (Jan.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1080 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0783894686
• ISBN-13: 978-0783894683
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,478,328 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

W.E.B. Griffin is the author of more than thirty epic novels in five series, all of which have been listed on The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly and other best-seller lists. More than forty million of his books are in print in more than ten languages, including Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, and Hungarian. Mr. Griffin grew up in the suburbs of New York City and Philadelphia. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1946. After basic training, he received counter-intelligence training at Fort Holabird, Maryland. He was assigned to the Army of Occupation in Germany, and ultimately to the staff of then-Major General I.D. White, commander of the U.S. Constabulary. In 1951, Mr. Griffin was recalled to active duty for the Korean War, interrupting his education at Phillips University, Marburg an der Lahn, Germany. In Korea he earned the Combat Infantry Badge as a combat correspondent and later served as acting X Corps (Group) information officer under Lieutenant General White. On his release from active duty in 1953, Mr. Griffin was appointed Chief of the Publications Division of the U.S. Army Signal Aviation Test & Support Activity at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Mr. Griffin is a member of the Special Operations Association, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, the Army Aviation Association, and the Armor Association. He was the 1991 recipient of the Brigadier General Robert L. Dening Memorial Distinguished Service Award of the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association, and the August 1999 recipient of the Veterans of Foreign Wars News Media Award, presented at the 100th National Convention in Kansas City. He has been vested into the Order of St. George of the U.S. Armor Association, and the Order of St. Andrew of the U.S. Army Aviation Association, and been awarded Honorary Doctoral degrees by Norwich University, the nation's first and oldest private military college, and by Troy State University (Ala.). He was the graduation dinner speaker for the class of 1988 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He has been awarded honorary membership in the Special Forces Association; the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association; the Marine Raiders Association; and the U.S. Army Otter & Caribou Association. He is the co-founder, with historian Colonel Carlo D'Este, of the William E. Colby Seminar on Intelligence, Military, and Diplomatic Affairs. Mr. Griffin's novels, known for their historical accuracy, have been praised by The Philadelphia Inquirer for their "fierce, stop-for-nothing scenes." "Nothing honors me more than a serviceman, veteran, or cop telling me he enjoys reading my books," Mr. Griffin says. Mr. Griffin divides his time between the Gulf Coast and Buenos Aires.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Who actually wrote this story, January 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Special Ops: A Brotherhood of War Novel (Hardcover)

After reading all the positive reviews for this book, I feel like maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. But I can't help thinking that somebody else contributed heavily to this book. It just doesn't feel like Griffin's dialogue. And who edited this book? Johnny Oliver and Jack Portet get mixed up, and I thought the version of the M16 used by Special Forces soldiers during that era was known as the CAR 15...(Griffin calls it a Car 16) As usual, Griffin has changed the story line from past books to make things fit into this story. (Take a close look with how he has played with Lowell's and Felter's pasts) And why can't Guevara actually be used in the story instead of being referred to in dozens of Top Secret messages? I don't know....I really like Griffin's Corps Series...and all the other Brotherhood books I thoroughly enjoyed...but this one was a struggle just to finish. But it's nice to see the characters brought back to life. I hope that if he does so again the story will flow a little more smoothly.

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Griffin has written better books, March 15, 2002

By 

Smallchief - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Special Ops (Brotherhood of War, Book 9) (Mass Market Paperback)

Griffin has written twenty books better than this, including the first half dozen books in the Brotherhood of War Series (this title is number 9 in the series) plus the eight titles in his Marine Corps series "The Corps." I would suggest that a new reader of Griffin start with the first book in one of these series and read them in order.

"Special Ops" is about the attempt of the U.S. military to defeat and discredit Che Guevara's revolutionary ambitions in the Congo in the mid-1960s. It might have been a great book had Che been a living, breathing character, rather than being seen only from afar.

Griffin seems tired of his old military heros, the best of whom is Craig Lowell, who is brave, good-looking, intelligent, irresistible to women, and filthy rich. Somehow, despite all that, you still like Craig, whose shortcomings are that he's always in trouble and gets more medals than he does promotions. He is still around in this book, but Griffin focuses on a younger group of soldiers who are only only bleary, second-rate copies of the original Craig Lowell.

Griffin's strong point has been the authenticity he has been able to bring to U.S. military culture. However, in "Special Ops" Griffin seems to have pulled out of a hat all his old literary tricks and reused them, changing the characters and the scenes a bit but relying on the tried and true -- and the now trite for readers familiar with his other books. Moreover, he makes mistakes, probably due to haste, as other reviewers have pointed out.

Don't read this book. Read the first book in Griffin's series, "The Lieutenants" or the first book in his Marine Corps series, "Semper Fi." At his best, Griffin is a great writer about war and the U.S. military, but "Special Ops" is not one of his best books.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Romance, Intrigue, and Green Berets, February 15, 2001

By 

John W. Bates (Americus, GA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Special Ops: A Brotherhood of War Novel (Hardcover)

W. E. B. Griffin is a very prolific, and very popular, writer. He has five series currently in place: The Brotherhood of War, The Corps, Badge of Honor, Honor Bound, and Men at War. (The Men at War series was published originally under the pseudonym of Alex Baldwin, and was not carried to conclusion. Republished in hardcovers under Griffin's name, it has been very successful-maybe Griffin will now finish the story line.) The Brotherhood of War series really established Griffin as a popular writer, and was carried to its conclusion. He later wrote a new entry, The Aviators, which was roughly coincident with the series' main line book The Berets. He now repeats that with another companion piece set in the 1960's - Special Ops. Special Ops revisits (rehashes) some of the action from both The Berets and The Aviators, but in Griffin's "episodic" style these sections repeating those from the other books fit right in and make the current story coherent. Leaving them out would leave gaps for those who have not read, or have forgotten, the previous books. The "new" story is about a detachment of Special Forces troops, many of whom were met in the other books, who mount a clandestine operation to defeat, and discredit, Che Guevara's attempt to export Cuban communist revolution to Central Africa. Sandy Feltner, one of the ongoing characters in the series, is an intelligence counselor to President Johnson (as he has been to Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy). He sees the risk Guevara poses, while the CIA does not, and proposes Army-based covert operations aimed at embarrassing Guevara while foiling him, rather than assassinating him and thus creating a martyr. Griffin's sometimes contemptuous treatment of the CIA is interesting, given his usually favorable treatment of the OSS in Men at War and Honor Bound stories. As always, Griffin honors the warriors and their supporters while spinning an interesting tale. He also connects well with his Argentinean research (the Honor Bound series). The ending is conclusive, if perhaps flawed by relying on printed reports and messages rather than direct narrative. On balance, Special Ops is a very satisfying addition to the Griffin bookshelf, and a nice reminder of the old series. It would be nice to see The Corps brought to its conclusion, however, and save revisiting a "completed" series. And isn't it past time for a new Badge of Honor story?