The Spoils Of War [Import] [Paperback]

Gordon Kent (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers (2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007229267
• ISBN-13: 978-0007229260
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,734,596 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gordon Kent was (is, I suppose) two people, my son - Christian Cameron, author of TYRANT and WASHINGTON AND CASEAR and other books - and me. The reason for the pseudonym was the obvious one that two names on a cover were not thought as good as one. And of course the one needed to be anglo and male; my suggestion of Max Cohen got nowhere, as did several dozen others we trotted by the publisher. Eventually, we settled on Gordon Kent: Gordon was my father's name, my son's middle name; Kent, oh, well.

We wrote eight novels - the Alan Craik books - under this pseudonym, starting with NIGHT TRAP (RULES OF ENGAGEMENT in the US, probably one of the most overworked titles there is) and ending with the much darker (and more satisfying) SPOILS OF WAR and THE FALCONER'S TALE. The books were about the air side of the US Navy, mostly about intelligence, but with a lot of derring-do that real intel officers never get to play at. They were usually fun to write because we'd both been in the navy, my son a good deal longer than I; we had our differences, as any two people must, but it was a surprisingly workable relationship. Lots of long-distance telephone calls, occasional meetings to go fishing and use the time in the car to plan books. We worked from outlines made on those trips, then divided the scenes up - we quickly learned who did which sorts of scenes and which characters better - and then we wrote and exchanged files and bickered and praised and wound up with a book.

Is Gordon Kent finished? We wonder. We're both writing our own books now under our own names, but occasionally we feel a nudge to go back to that partnership. Maybe, maybe....

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dark but where's the dawn?, October 21, 2008

By 

Paul - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Spoils of War (Paperback)

This is a rather odd book coming after half a dozen others which were focused on the US navy and its aircraft. No dogfights in this one and not an aircraft carrier in sight. It seems to represent a new theme for the author(s) which is carried into the Falconer's Tale - espionage without much glamor. James Bond-style suave certainty is also very much absent from rather a dark and foreboding tale.

Post 9/11 and Alan Craik and his friends are still here but the mood has changed. There's an air of bitterness because the moral compass which identified America as something to believe in and something to fight for has been tossed out of the window by opportunists who used the event to justify their own agenda; people who have no qualms about becoming that thing they are supposedly fighting in order to gain their objectives.

Sounds familiar? Yes, it's rather close to the truth as it begins to emerge and reflects the way American people start to ask just exactly what they signed up for in the hysteria following the collapse of the twin towers. Craik and his friends witness those changes early and close up, and they don't like what they see. But they still have a job to do and they are not going to compromise their ideals. The inevitable result is frustration, burn-out and failure. There are few neat happy endings in such a world and this book doesn't contrive one.

The overall feeling is one in which the authors, themselves familiar with the world of intelligence from previous experience, are sounding a warning about what America has become, when truth and morality are thrown out for the lure of expediency. They don't like what they see either and that comes across very clearly in the tone of the book and the transference of ideals onto their principal characters. Which is not to say the book is boring. It isn't.

Slower paced than previous works, it is still a compelling read, in part because of the underlying truth and in part because of the abilities of Gordon Kent to write an absorbing tale with believable characters who are far removed from the cardboard cutout stereotypes of many such works. Read it but don't look for the cavalry to come to the rescue in the last couple of pages. It's not that sort of book.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Spoils of War, August 30, 2010

By 

Nancy DeLisle (SAINT CLAIR, MI, US) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Spoils Of War (Paperback)

I purchased this book for my husband. He did enjoy it and I was happy with the condition of the book and the speedy delivery.