Rats (NomaD Thriller Series) Paperback – February 24, 2014

This is a story with twists, turns, bad guys maybe being good guys, good guys maybe being bad guys, with a Black Ops backdrop thrown in. There is a lot to like about this book; there is also a lot falling short.The plot starts with a very tense scene of a possible terrorist attack on the Alaska Pipeline. It sets the stage well for intrigue. However, much of the followup to this seems to drag, and almost lose cohesion at points. Many characters are introduced quickly, and some never serve much, if any, use further in the story. The most useless character in the book is probably Jonny Munch, a local journalist trying to latch onto a big story to further his career. His character essentially never discovers anything, never moves the story forward for either good or ill, and seems to be a complete waste of electronic ink.Detective Qigiq seems to be used rather unevenly, and later in the book pops up in some places and situations that are far beyond believability. However, his character is solid and has potential in future stories. General Williams is at the same time a good character and one with limited believability himself. Parts of his character are thrown out almost haphazardly and never built on further, such as he could "always find another young bimbo on a college campus" to replace Claire. He is also written as having almost limitless political and military pull in order to cover up huge situations.Then with all his talent and almost super-human abilities, he cannot figure out that Claire and Donna are not the same person? Unrealistic. I would say he was written by someone who has no concept of military command structure. Finally we get to Claire. This is a young woman who is supposedly one of the best sharpshooters in the military, yet she truly has no military bearing, attitudes, or honor code. She is an enlisted that fraternizes with an officer (big no-no in the military), she acts absolutely unmilitary in her dealings and has no special ops training beyond marksmanship, but then volunteers for a high-stakes covert ops mission in hostile territory. This would never happen. Finally, although it is not really pushed as such, she turns traitor to her service and her country. I found this very hard to get past.The "terrorist" character (pick whatever name you like since he has so many) is also quite unrealistic. One does not pick up the huge abilities and knowledge he has from "online college classes". Also, his availability to cutting-edge computer and robotic technology in the remote jungles of Vietnam stretches credibility. It is all run from a Chinese knockoff of a Honda generator? Not a chance.The surprising thing with all these unbelievable situations and characters is that overall, it is an enjoyable story. It does drag in spots, but in the main you keep wanting to find out what happens next. It is a fun read if you don't try to analyze things very hard. The grammar and spelling errors are in existence, but do not greatly distract from the story. I would say about 1/2 a star down in rating for them, 1/2 a star for the unnecessary characters taking up space, and about 1 star down for the uneven pace and massive suspension of belief required for much of this book. As a first attempt, though, it was a decent story. With some editing on characters, situations, and words, I think this could be a very good book. As it is, it is still a good read, though unnecessarily long (kind of like my review).

After having read lots of spy/CIA/spec ops/black ops novels, including Vince Flynn, this is the first book in a long time that I just couldn't willingly put down. Other commenters have mentioned unbelievable characters and/or situations. So what? MUST the bad guy adhere to standard, bad guy rules? Can he NOT have technologies and methods heretofore unheard of? Of course. The same goes for the good guys, and this author weaves all of that into an excellent story.A female sharpshooter on a mission above her level of experience and training so far, because she was given a chance to prove herself? Very plausible, especially considering her planned fate and that of her mission partners. A one-star general who answers directly to the president, and has extraordinary access to amazing government tech? Of course.Such personel actually exist. This character was pretty tough at crunch time, but did not exhibit any superhuman qualities.Regarding believability of characters or plot line, not only does Joe Klingler work the reader around that in nimble fashion, but, trust me, there are many, many small government missions going on all over the world that are stranger than any fiction you'll ever read, with terrible results if they go wrong, and which you will never, ever hear about.If anything, and as was mentioned elsewhere, the author could have been more distinct with the working code words assigned to named characters, etc., but if you pay close attention, that does not get in the way of this utterly fascinating plot. I will definitely be ordering my next read by Mr. Klingler after finishing this review!

I gave the 5 star rating within the context of the genre, the first book for thus author, and the description and use of technology. I enjoy a technical premise or hypothesis that is matured to reality in a storyline. While this is book not Clarke writing about self replicating monoliths increasing the mass of Jupiter in order to transform it into a sun, there is a lot of technical application. If the reader allows themselves to take the journey and accept the technology premise as real, the story works well.Challenges:From a military standpoint, both operationally and culturally, there are gaps, inaccuracies, and and pure fantasy. As the the military aspect is woven into the bones of the story, those that requires military accuracy may be put off. My enjoyment of the book was not hampered by weak military accuracy.I almost stopped reading after several chapters as the descriptive imagery overwhelmed. Trying to digest the descriptive prose caused me to loose track of the storyline. With that said, much like a Patrick O'Brian book, intertwined with idiomatic language and square rig sailing terminology, once I shifted to the cadence and writting style the story emerges and flowed freely.Claire, the heroine, seemed more akin to a marksman (markswoman) than an actual sniper. She seemed to lack the layers and depth required to be a combat sniper. I offer this from the context of the self discipline required to be on scope for hours, days etc. She had bravado, self control, confidence, but she more akin to a military helicopter pilot than scout sniper. Stereotypical speaking, I mean no offense.WorkedI really enjoyed the integration of common and yet to be conventionally commercialized technology. There are many disciplines integrated into the story as common and as cornorstone elements. Whether operationally accurate or not, the military planning aspects were enjoyable, even in a 007 sort of way. As others described there are slow areas, but I found myself reading longer and longer to find out what was going to happen next. The underlying premise of the sourcing of components for the RATS was unexpected and intriguing. I felt the passion of the author through the characters regarding what humans do to humans. You may agree or disagree when an author offers a value in their writing, but this cause resonated with me and resulted in a more powerful connection to the story. I enjoyed the book and wished it had more pages. I look forward to reading the newer works from this author and I hope that another book is released with these characters.

The best book I've read in a long time,RATS it definitely is not,Give it a try you will not be disappointed(If you like books with twists and turns that keep you guessing this one's for you)

good read

Great Read

A good read

Keeps you rivetted