The Mullah's Storm by Thomas W. Young

Non-stop action from start to finish.

Published in 2010 by G.P. Putnam's Sons.

The Mullah's Storm is an action adventure set in Afghanistan. It features U.S. Air Force Major Michael Parson, a navigator of a C-130 Hercules transport plane and a female army interpreter named Sergeant Gold.

The book starts on the run with the plane transporting a high value elderly mullah to the prison at Guantanamo Bay right before a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm. But, on page 4 the plane gets hit by a handheld rocket and crashes. The survivors are attacked by Taliban forces who are trying to free the mullah. Gold, Parson and the reluctant Mullah flee the wreckage and the chase commences.

Young has a great ability to describe action sequences so that the military layman can understand what is going on. A variety of weapons, tactics and pieces of technology are used throughout the book (including a nifty description of how airdrops are guided to the ground) and Young never made me feel lost.

The author, Thomas W. Young, who
served in the Air National Guard in
Afghanistan and Iraq.

On the negative side, Young does absolutely no character development. The reader learns nothing about Parsons except that he is an experienced hunter and his father was also a pilot. Gold remains a mystery throughout. If her first name is mentioned, I do not remember it. We do not find out how she learned to speak Pashto or learned about the cultures of Afghanistan.

But, does it matter?

In this case, no.

Certainly, the book would have been better with more detail about these characters, but I plowed throughout this book in about a day and a half - it pulled me in and I just had to know what happened next. Any book that pulls you in and engrosses you so thoroughly has to be recognized.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Mullah's Storm.

Reviewed July 28, 2010.

Rules of Betrayal by Christopher Reich

Published in 2010 by Doubleday

Rules of Betrayal is the third installment of the "Rules" series starring Jonathan and Emma Ransom. Jonathon is a doctor who has worked with Doctors Without Borders in the past but is now freelancing in Afghanistan. His wife is a former double agent who was assigned to marry Dr. Ransom and his world-hopping assignments as a member of Doctors Without Borders as a cover to do her spy work in the past.

All of this is quite complicated, but deftly explained by Reich in the first few pages of his new book. I had never even heard of Reich before I read this book, let alone read the other books in the series and I was not lost (although I will not be going back to the other books to catch up either - Reich has already caught me up).

The premise of the book is that Dr. Ransom and his estranged wife Emma are both caught up in an international arms deal that involves the Taliban attempting to get hold of a WMD that the U.S. Air Force lost in 1984 in the mountains of Pakistan near the border of Afghanistan. Both Emma and Jonathan Ransom are now in the swirl of events.

Are the events in the book plausible?

Hardly, but they are interesting and Reich has a knack for writing action sequences and dialogue that works. I found myself sucked into the story and staying up late to keep on reading. In the end, that's what it's all about, isn't it?

I give it 5 stars out of a possible 5 stars. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Rules of Betrayal by Christopher Reich.

Reviewed July 20, 2010