Friday, June 19, 2009

Book Review - Certain Jeopardy

Certain Jeopardy by Jeff Struecker
B&H Books (2009)
Trade Paperback
400 pages
Advance Readers Copy

While the premise and plot were quite interesting the conclusion of this story was a bit predictable. This was a fairly quick read which usually tends to make me want to give the author a higher rating. Perhaps this is because of how hard it is to write something that reads quickly.

But there are elements of this story that seem out of place to me. First, the more overtly religious themes (i.e. prayer, moral choices, etc.) came at odd times and distracted me. Second, there was an obvious effort to gloss over profanities and hard language which in a story of this nature seems unrealistic. And third, there was a faint undertone of being “ministered to,” not exactly what I’m looking for in a story about covert military operations.

The Special Ops themes, military objectives, and action sequences of “Certain Jeopardy” were interesting and entertaining to read. And it is obvious that the author has had military training and has also experienced the most difficult task of war; that of leaving loved ones behind.

The main characters were very believable and nicely drawn from experience and the mission, while not exactly front page news, was plausible if not somewhat far-fetched.

Overall a fairly good read.

3 of 5 stars

The Alternative
April 12th, 2009
Southeastern Wisconsin

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