Spooky 8: The Final Mission [Hardcover]

Bob King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 10, 1999

This will shock you.

This is a story of lies, betrayal, cover up and murder. And it's all true.

1975 -- the U.S. government recruits former Army soldier Bob King to be part of one of its most covert operative teams: Spooky 8. For the next 17 years, King and Spooky 8 worked the dark, classified side of black operations, running covert missions all over the world.

1992 -- King gets new orders that change everything.

The Mission -- An "Easy breather" leads the eight members of the Spooky 8 team to Columbia, to set up surveillance equipment, collect their pay and go home. No risk, easy money.

The Fate -- Spooky 8 is met with an ambush. Three team members are brutally killed.

The Payback -- Wounded and grieving, King and his surviving team members struggle back into the U.S., desperate and hungry for answers. What they find shakes the foundations of our government and will forever change any notion you ever had about democracy.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For readers who believe truth is stranger than fiction, Bob King's tell-all book about the U.S. government's covert operations is an eye-opener. "In a world inundated with deception, media disinformation, cover stories, and lies, it's impossible to know exactly what the truth really means," writes King. "All I know for sure is that a very dark side of our government is in control." King tells how his ragtag team of blue-collar commandos, known as "Spooky 8," was frequently assembled to perform sensitive operations for the U.S. government in Central and South America. King takes a novelistic approach to his story (which purports to be rooted in fact), creating tough characters and macho dialogue. He shares Tom Clancy's love of technical detail and describes the unusual tools used by black-op professionals, such as high-powered amphetamines that "allowed us to work at 150 percent for three or four days without sleep." (The side effects: "At the end of the mission, your body shut down so hard, you might sleep for a couple of days.") The plot revolves around a government conspiracy to eliminate Spooky 8's members on what is supposed to be a simple mission of setting up surveillance equipment in the Colombian jungle. Apparently King and his buddies know too many secrets, and somebody high up wants them eliminated. Fans of Richard Marcinko's Rogue Warrior won't want to miss Spooky 8. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

From the very beginning, King assumes a defensive position: "I expect a considerable effort will be made to discredit my past, challenge my veracity, or even attack my mental state to make sure few will take this story and what it represents seriously." What this book represents will surely disturb many readersAbut not for the reasons King thinks it will. Though he wants us to be shocked by the fact that the U.S. government is willing to betray its covert operatives, what will trouble them is King's own attitude toward events. The book bears obvious similarities to Richard Marcinko's Rogue Warrior series, but readers know that Marcinko's teamAin both his fiction and nonfictionAis under the command of the U.S. Navy and that its existence is therefore a matter of record. By contrast, King writes that his team, Spooky 8, which he joined in 1975, was a covert team designed to work the "dark, classified side of black operations" and that he never knew who was running the show. In an epithet-filled style thick with self-conscious bravado, King describes a Spooky 8 mission gone wrong. In 1992, the team was dispatched to Colombia to set up surveillance equipment to monitor the drug trade. It was ambushed and lost three members. The "final mission" of the subtitle refers to how King and his fellow survivors deduced who betrayed them, kidnapped the culprit and killed him, with King pulling the trigger ("BBLLLAAAMMM! 'That's for Santana'"). One team member collected the spent shell casings to make a necklace. The prospect that King is telling the truth may distress readers more than the prospect that he is fabricating events. Those events are related with a modicum of suspense in adrenalized prose laced with sometimes laughable dialogue. But even if everything that King says happened actually did occur, his telling is so devoid of meaningful moral reflection that it will satisfy only those willing to entertain the most lurid and violent revenge fantasies. Photos not seen by PW. Film rights to Hughes Brothers' Underworld Productions. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (July 10, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312205791
• ISBN-13: 978-0312205799
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,167,871 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Long time, no hear, January 6, 2000

By 

CW4 Brick (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spooky 8: The Final Mission (Hardcover)

Hey "Chance", long time no see. Ladies and Gentlmen, I know this guy and I've heard all these stories before. This is a "never made it there" Private with too much barstool time. It's what you get when you cross the fiction of Rambo with the reality of Norm and Cliff at "Cheers." "Chance", I know where you drink Corona (or are you back to Stoli in a Chimney?), and if you make money off of this, I'll come slap you off that barstool and take my money back.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Spooky 8 - A journey into poor literature, September 24, 2000

By 

Tom Marzullo (Englewood, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spooky 8: The Final Mission (Hardcover)

Unsophisticated devotees of military based stories and Walter Mitty clones will like this book for it's rather tedious plot and tired prose. Listing this particular book as a work of nonfiction does a egregious disservice to authors who have actually done the research or have faithfully recounted their own experiences. Had it been published earlier, this is one of those works that would have been listed in the book "Stolen Valor" as prime example of unmitigated (and unwarranted) self glorification.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Wil the real John Rambo please stand up?, November 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Spooky 8: The Final Mission (Hardcover)

I could only get through the first 3 chapters before I gave up on this book. Poorly researched and written, it's even bad fiction, but touted as the truth... it's just plain sad. From the Rambo-esque photo on the back to the mistakes regarding equipment nomeclature and far fetched story. Tom Clancy writes better pieces of work (Rainbow Six, Clear and Present Danger, and Without Remorse). Stick w/ the real deal like Bob Mayer and Dick Couch (Both Spec Ops veterans who write awesome fiction based on fact). I'm donating my copy to the local thrift store.