Chapter By Chapter> Op-Center: Mirror Image chapter 3

Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter (or possibly multiple chapter for this one) of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.

In our last chapter we learned that the British are fighting the commies through a comic book company. Not completely in context but I wanted to write it that way. 😀

This chapter appears to be heading to Washington, DC to check in on regular Op-Center. Readers who caught my review of the first book won’t be surprised to hear I’m going into this with concerns. Paul Hood, the head guy, was the only decent character among the in-fighters, the dude after his job who forced his way into a field team mission (leaving a perfectly good soldier to sit it out) for his own ends and was less than helpful, and the woman who wanted to sleep with her married boss because her ex-husband left her for another woman. They stumbled their way through that adventure, getting lucky while the competent characters were in Korea investigating a bombing. One man lost his wife to said bombing and he still managed to pull himself together long enough to be more helpful.

I’m hoping whomever is the writer or writers on this story went back, saw their past mistakes, and will work to fix it. All that is why I think it’s too early in the book series to introduce and evil Op-Center of sorts. Let’s see if anything has improved.

Saturday, 12:20 PM, Washington, DC

This chapter brings us a meeting with three of our main cast: Paul Hood, head of Op-Center and the only likable character, his second-in-command Mike Rogers, who is the guy who took a soldier’s place because he favors action over negotiation–not the guy to have in an international crisis when you can’t drop in like Rambo Batman and not make things worse–and Ann Ferris, the press officer who only pursues married men. These are our heroes…for lack of a better offer.

What’s more, Paul is going on vacation to California, where Paul used to be mayor of LA, with his wife and kids. (Suck it, Ferris!) And yes, she does still want to do to Paul’s wife what her ex’s mistress did to her. We the reader also know this is not a good time for him to leave, as Commie Op-Center is about to go into operation and Mike is the blow-em-up-first type. I see this going poorly. Paul gives them his itinerary for the week, we learn Mike is an ass, that Ann reduces people to sound bite descriptions as a side effect of her job, and Mike apparently knows she wants to get under Paul’s hood. The scene was jovial for all of a few paragraphs until I started getting reminders why I don’t like these people except for Paul.

This could be someone’s first book, so the chapter takes time to explain the National Crisis Management Center, it’s nickname that the title of the series comes from, and their location because this series loves its geopolitical history cred. It also tries to play off the last book as some major victory rather than just barely keeping from f-ing everything up sideways.

This still feels like a story that should have saved for a later book. Not only is Op-Center getting an evil twin in the second book/third situation, but it will be without Paul Hood. I’d rather wait until these guys get along better…at least professionally…and then let us see what they do without their leader, conscience, and only decent member of the team. Instead we just barely got past the gate and already everyone is going to be pushed without a nearby guardrail or railing. Again, I’m expecting this to go South faster that Bugs Bunny heading to a carrot festival.

The next chapter is barely two pages long, so it will be our first double chapter installment pretty early. We’ll see by the end if this lives down to my expectations as we go on.