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.
We has to do two chapters last time as Orlov, Jr got where he was going while we were introduced to another character just as he got nabbed by the Ruskies. Whether or not they’re on the pro-restore communism team or not we have yet to learn. It won’t be this chapter because we’re going to back to Op-Center.
One of the problems with this long books is running out of things to discuss comes earlier in the book than in other books. We are just barely near the halfway part of this 78 chapter, 436 page paperback novel, and we still won’t actually make the halfway point for another few installments. I try not to spoil things in the intro because this ends up on the homepage for a few days. It means I don’t have a lot to pad this out with, and there isn’t much to say outside of repeating how this has been an improvement thus far over the last book as our heroes aren’t coming off as total self-important putzes. The villains are, but they’re supposed to. They’re the bad guys. So I have been enjoying this thus far.
Can’t wait to see how they @#$#% this one over.
Chapter 29: Monday, 3:10 PM, Washington, DC
Looks like our heroes are putting on their thinking caps and acting like detectives. Bob Herbert gets a call from the spy satellite guys were doing work for the DEA. Once they noticed Russian forces might be involved, they dropped information to Op-Center. Yes, in the Clancyverse the various government protect our butts groups actually share information to prevent the baddies’ plans. Too bad we don’t live in that world, though they do seem to have more bombings in their reality. Bob confers with Mike as the National Reconnaissance Office official lets them know about Jet’s death and the spetsnaz troops loading things off of the trucks leaving the airport and to the train station.
Bob and Mike start putting the clues together, realizing huge parts of Dogin’s coup plan and how even telling the current Russian President what’s going on could be a problem as there isn’t a lot he could do. At the very least the book makes their theories make more sense in context than how I summarized it. Paul is called in with all the info, and he reluctantly agrees to let Striker check it out, but they’ll have to split up since they still need the team to Helsinki and it means another operation in Russian territory. They’re still suspicious of the TV station, though not yet fully aware of Commie Op-Center’s operation. Paul tells Mike he’s not fully behind this operation, but he’s fully behind Mike. Sometimes you have to talk with a fist instead of a voice box and this might be one of those times. Paul listens to his team, and in this book they’re actually coming off as competent.
We’re heading back to Moscow next chapter. And Berlin after that. Yes, it’s another two short chapter combination. I wonder how Germany is going to get involved?
BW Media Spotlight 
[…] Last time our heroes showed more intelligence in one chapter than I saw in most of the first book, as they begin to put pieces together in Dogin’s little jigsaw of a plan to overthrow the new Russian government and restore communism. […]
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