Chapter By Chapter> Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image chapter 34

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.

Well, we finally made it to the halfway point of this novel. Our last chapter had the team trying to work out a strategy that will allow them to stop the bad guys and hopefully prevent a crisis this time.

This has been a really long book and I don’t see me reading it again in the future. Jeff Rovin, supposed ghostwriter for this series, is throwing in a lot of trivia that may excite Tom Clancy fans but I really don’t care about. At least this time our heroes look competent. In the first book the Koreans and Op-Center agent in Korea were better than the Op-Center team since they didn’t really get along. This time we’re seeing them work together, respect each other, and act professional while still trying to do what needs to be done without starting another war. I’m hoping this will be the trend for the rest of the book. Let’s see how long it lasts.

Chapter 34: Monday, 11:44 PM, Helsinki

Private George is finally getting to go on a mission. This will be his first out of US assignment, since Mike Rodgers replaced him in the first book, which they acknowledge. Squires meets with Major Aho (a rather unfortunate name when you consider what English word it sounds like), who is a very pleasant man. During the trip to the Presidential Palace, Aho tells George all about the Vikings and how difficult it was to discuss them in schools, considering their treatment of women, the various people they tried to conquer being offended, and that’s all kind of true today even more so given current sociopolitical discussions.

At the Palace, George meets with Agent James, and they introduce themselves by…attacking each other to show off how good they are at killing? What? This is actually a good bonding moment between them, and it’s a culture I’ll never fully understand. Then they get their assignments, posing as Russian sailors. The odd thing is, Private George apparently doesn’t know Russian, and yet he’ll have to act like the one in charge of the pair. That’s an odd choice. Either the authors should have made him fluent in Russian or they should have sent someone else. It’s the first misstep by our heroes in this story, but hopefully they’ll work around it.

The final scene has a Russian agent watching the palace as Aho leaves with two people, since Commie Op-Center was able to track the plane. She’s introduced by narration as Valya, and she’s the one who tricked and eliminated Fields-Hutton. She’s smart enough to stay behind while her driver follows the car to see if more agents come out of the palace. She guesses right. Aho is leaving with two decoys, and she spots George and James. You can guess she’s going to pull a similar trick she did on Fields-Hutton. The question is whether or not James will be able to get revenge for her friend or join him on the other side.

This chapter ended up going back to my comments at the start of this article, that all this extra trivia really doesn’t interest me. The history of George’s weapons and the currently unrelated Viking discussion isn’t what I’m into, but they’re clearly targeting the audience that does. We’ll probably see more of it next time.