Field of Valor by Matthew Betley

#3 in the Logan West saga, former Marine Force Recon commander. Now head of the special task force Ares that answers only to the President. Their current target is a shadowy group that controls untold number of cells worldwide. The Organization.

At first, The Organization acted against groups that worked against the greater good. Now they too have gone a bit rogue. Task Force Ares picks up the investigation. Intel says a top dog known only as The Recruiter is to be and the National Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport. As Ares tracks a couple possible targets in the mob of tourists, West mobile phone rings and he answers the unknown number right in the middle of an op. A strangely familiar voice tells him that the Museum is a trap.

The trap and subsequent shoot out start a chain of unpredictable events. Like the Baltimore-Washington Pkwy execution of an NSA boss on his way to brief the President. The assault on the Chesapeake Bay mansion of a shipping billionaire. And more assaults all on US soil. Clues say there is a shadow government in the US. Or is it China? Or Russia? Trust is running pretty thin in West’s world.

Being a former Marine officer and sniper platoon commander with deployments to Africa and the middle east, Betley is perfectly suited to deliver the goods at the pace of a minigun. You no sooner catch your breath and then the next assault sneaks in through the bushes of descends from a helicopter. With Betley having served in combat, we have to believe the dialog of battle is as it should be and the action, bloody and vicious, reflects what all of us can only imagine. 

Great non-stop action and realistic dialog cover dang near every page. What more do you want? Why, another Logan West book.

BTW, just learned that the Logan West series has been optioned to Hollywood. Should be way better than anything Marvel or DC Comics are giving us today.

ECD

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Field of Valor

I can't possibly read all the books that are forwarded to me, so I passed this one to my friend who I'll title "GregGolf of Whispering Palms." He enjoyed the book and gave me a one-sentence review: "If you are into military small arms and the people who use them, this is your book."

East Coast Don has previously reviewed three of Betley's books, and his comments were essentially raves about the quality of his stories.

Oath of Honor by Matthew Betley

It's two years since the debacle in Iraq. Logan West and John Quick, former Force Recon Marines, are now part of an FBI task force. They are tasked to an obscure Aleutian to run down a rumored Russian black ops team hunting for some highly classified US technology. This information-finding mission quickly degenerates to a shoot out aboard the Arctic Glide research ship anchored at Amaknak Island. But the technology was successfully grabbed. 

West and Quick track the theft to a village in Spain, again arriving too late. The technology has been secreted to a North Korean ship steaming across the Med toward Africa. With help from Spain and the CIA's Madrid station (in particular, Cole Matthews), they intercept, board, and search.

Wrong again. The ship was a red herring. Bad intel. Or was it good intel for the other side? The team returns to Spain only to get the correct intel that the device in question is on a Gulfstream whose flight plan is for Sudan. 

The technology in question is called ONERING (after Lord of the Rings). It controls an American space-based weapon that can target land-based targets. And it's just been activated. It damages a Chinese-Sudanese oil field on the border of Sudan and (soon to be) independent South Sudan.

About the same time, a small terrorist ring attacks the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The FBI quickly learns the the attack is a diversion away from the real target, a rare elements mining operation in the nearby Nevada desert.

When West and Quick arrive in Sudan, they are quickly targeted, but not by the Sudanese. These commandos are highly trained Chinese. West and Matthews are taken captive and sent to an off the books prison holding mostly Darfur rebels. The Black Hole is a lawless compound that, mostly, entertains its captives with life or death battles in a boxing ring.

And just how do the leaders of this plan know so much about West, Quick, and Matthews?

While Quick and the CIAs Sudan station rush to find West and Matthews, the Chinese and Sudanese who are complicit in this attempt to rush the US and China in to a conflict find themselves in the crosshairs of LEGION - one of the CIAs most lethal and entirely autonomous assassins. Quick and LEGION join forces with SEAL Team 6 to raid the hidden site of Chinese commandos, obtain ONERING, rescue West and Matthews, and find the leaders of this global conspiracy.

Former Marine Betley is setting up a series of (he says 5 books) that pits the globalists vs. the nationalists. Someone who sits at the 'new world order' table is trying to get the superpowers at each other's throats. Once they've fought to a stalemate, the 'globalists' will swoop in with global control and end all this ridiculous nationalist control. It's going to happen eventually anyway.

The current President offers West, Quick, Matthews, and the LEGION asset carte blanche to deal find out just who has the cash, support, and inclination to manipulate current world leaders into a global conspiracy to bring about this new world order.  Call them ARES.

While the title of Oath of Honor may sound like a bad Steven Segal movie, it's far from that. Bentley shines in his presentation of every aspect, good and bad, of a firefight. The detail, the tools, the skills, the horror. He races West and Quick from Alaska to Spain to the Med to various locales in Sudan (with the FBI in Vegas) finally back to DC in pulse pounding fashion.

This is one kick ass book, folks. If I was required to cite something weak, it might be that some (and only some, I might add) of the dialogue seems a little forced. But that's hardly a reason to pass on this. On the heels of his first novel, Overwatch, Betley has skillfully provided we thriller readers with another winner. Thriller readers should accept him as quickly as they accepted Alex Berenson, another relative new author into the fold.

And mercifully, he's slyly advised us on five more West/Quick thrillers. Can't wait. Assuming #3 is as good as #s 1 and 2, Betley will soon join my power rotation.

As always, thanks to the good folks at Emily Bestler Books/Atria Books (imprints of Simon and Schuster) for the advance copy for review. As I've said in some earlier reviews, you should trust in Emily Bestler Books. If published by them, it's a safe bet it'll be a winner. I've yet to be disappointed.

Available March 14, 2017.  Put in your orders now.

ECD

Over Watch by Matthew Betley

A number of years ago, this Marine squad was tasked with grabbing a CIA operative being held captive in an Al-Anbar house. Capt. Logan West wasn’t happy with the assignment. Came up too quickly. Not enough intel. Too many holes. But his commander says get with it.

The raid turns out to be a trap. The house was a torture chamber beyond anything they had seen before and what intel the CIA had was bogus and unsubstantiated. The squad was surrounded and most were slaughtered. West and his Gunny got out alive, but far from unscarred. Logan essentially quit the Marines, became a drunk and tossed out by his wife. Once Gunny John Quick was discharged, he ran for the boonies of Montana to escape his memories in a self-imposed prison in the mountains.

Logan awakens from a booze-induced blackout to what’s obviously a well trained military type standing over him in Logan’s basement. He wants an Iraqi battle flag that one of his Marines lifted from that torture house. Not interested in cooperating? Maybe the screams from your wife might change you mind.

Despite his hangover, West overcomes his opponent and heads for his wife’s house where 3 or 4 guys are doing their best to get her to call Logan for the information, but years of marriage to a Marine Force Recon officer taught a little toughness and she manages to off a couple just before Logan gets there to finish the job. A call to the FBI brings in a whole bunch of help.

That flag. What’s its importance and to whom? Maybe it’s that souvenir Gunny Quick brought back from the torture house. Well, the bad guys thought of that, too. And about a half dozen guys are working their way to the Gunny’s house unaware that being retired doesn’t mean the old skills are forgotten, and manages to keep one of the mercs alive.

The FBI, West, and Quick put their heads together and interrogate their captive. What the hell? They were hired by a security boss for a Mexican cartel. But what good is an Iragi flag to a cartel, where did they find all these mercs, and how does this relate to that failed mission in Al-Anbar?

Betley, a former Marine officer, takes the reader on a spectacular chase from Maryland to Montana to Texas and back to Iraq trying to find out the flag’s secrets, what those secrets are leading to, and where and when will whatever happen? The threat is that thousands may die forever changing the world.

The good folks are Atria Books (a Simon & Schuster imprint) sent this preprint with a note that Betley was signed by Emily Bestler who also brought Vince Flynn and Brad Thor to wide distribution. If she says this guy could be the next big thing in thrillers, who am I to argue? Pace and authenticity are the calling cards here and Betley has both in spades. No doubt the beginning of a series of Logan West books.

To quote Samuel L. Jackson in Jurassic Park: “Hold onto your butts.”

Available March 1, 2016

East Coast Don