Black Ops

This an ever evolving story covering five books. Seemingly unrelated events are examined on their individual merit to culminate in a global web of intrigue resulting in the uncovering of a potential threat of f the global population and life as we know it. Led by a stalwart junior officer who is underestimated for his ability and focus to complete his mission. Its an interesting yarn that will captivate you through all five books.

This is the last of the Presidential Agent series which began with the story of the hijacked airliner. It starts slowly and I think Griffin may not have written the first few chapters. About a quarter of the way in, when I was getting impatient with all the exposition of back story and the rather wooden character development, the pace picks up and it seems Griffin is back. I suspect his son may have done the early chapters. If you are familiar with the other books of the series, skim those early chapters. The writing picks up and the plot gets going when Russian SVR agents contact Castillo and tell him he is set up for assassination. From that point on, we are back with the WEB Griffin skills in plot and character development that have kept us reading his novels for 25 years.The plot pulls together all the seemingly unconnected threads of the other stories and explains the various characters and their relationships. Griffin is teaching us more Russian history, including the current Russian leadership about which he has strong opinions. I don't know how accurate his information is, for example he has another theory about Ivan the Terrible than I have read, but he has been right before. He has sources of information that don't write books. Anyway, after a slow start (for which I subtract one star), the novel gets going and is a great example of Griffin's story telling.The ending, which others have complained about, actually opens a new chapter and may promise more books with Charley Castillo and his band of warriors. I had actually wondered how Griffin was going to handle the changes in Washington. The President in the series is obviously Bush and the other cabinet officers are recognizable. That will change so a Presidential Agent may now become the agent of the shadowy group of patriots that appears at the end. This novel also introduces what may be the real romance in Charlie's life and I can see more books with this theme, as well.I recommend it for those who have read the other books in the series and, as far as I am concerned, Griffin hasn't lost his touch. Alexander Dumas had a writing team that composed large sections of his novels. Those novels have stood the test of time and these will too.

The only problem with this series is the constant history from the previous books over and over. 20 min rehash of family and mission history every so often is a bit much.

This is Griffin at his best - writing alone and without the "help" of his son. He takes the story from where it left off in book IV of the series, but does not do the 100% recap. in the first 50 pages, as some of his more recent books have done. He weaves the stories from the earlier novels into the narrative, as appropriate.It is a good plot, he keeps developing the characters, and he provides a real ending - unlike a few other of his more recent novels, the ending seems to come naturally and not pushed to meet a page number count.The proof reading still needs a little work - on page 205 the phrase "out of mind" should read "out of my mind" and on page 306, the CIA Travel report on the Congo lists an Ebola outbreak in September of 2007, although the report is dated January 2006. Although they mention the State Department Travel Advisories (In my opinion mostly political BS), he fails to mention that the British Foreign Office still provides real world travel advisories to their subjects on their web site.The author has kept up with his weapons and does not have the usual firearm errors that other writers tend to have in abundance. He even has the team using the fairly new HK MP7A1 rather than the much older HK MP5.Another winner by Mr. Butterworth under his Griffin nom de plume.

Mr. Griffin always excels at writing about the military and about the intelligence community, and this book is no exception. LTC Carlos Castillo is off on another wild ride around the world (Europe, Africa, South America, Texas, and the rest of the United States), with his supporting band of warriors. Some of the good guys are killed along the way, but new ones band together with old ones, to chase down the bad guys, who are putting the world at risk.The real questions in this book are whether or not Carlos will survive, as a force for good, and as a bachelor. Has he met his match?I could not put this book down. This is like all Griffin books, it is fun to read, and you always learn more about the good guys who are protecting the world. Mr. Griffin knows how to portray them at their finest. I have read, and reread all of Mr. Griffin's books and series, and they are still my favorite, both to read and to give as gifts. All Griffin books are five stars, but everyone has their favorites.

Again too many characters. Plot was good as ususal. That's a why I continue reading but the ending kind of blew my mind.

Black Ops is one of the books in the Presidential Agent series and the last one actually written by Griffin before his son takes over. I read the paperback version which was about 780 pages. This book has the characters from the previous ones including the dog Max along with a few new ones. This book starts a few months after the previous one,"The Shooters" ends. There is not a lot of action in the book but for the most part involves gathering intelligence and eventually planing an operation. As is common in Griffin novels, a portion is used to go over details of the previous books in the series. Some reviewers have a problem with this but is obviously necessary for the reader new to the series. Overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.

One of the best authors in the world for my opinion.The only author I prefer more than James A Michener, Tom Clancy and Colleen McCullough.

On the whole I like the machine, but I have a couple of problems with it.On all other Fax/Telephone M/cs I have owned you dial in the number and then press the "go" key. On this one you press the "on hook dial" before dialling the number which is the reverse to what I am used.I find that this is excellent as a straight Fax M/c,and, since I have another telephone, that is all I use it for. Now all the junk callers get the Fax signal after two rings. I was not happy with it set to receive Calls as well as Fax, but that may be due to my lack of skill in setting up.The Phone Book works well. Good value for the money.

good.

To much recaps of previous books.

20 years ago this story would be nice. Nowadays its to much invention, bare of realistic scenarios and facts. It seems the author sees himself as one of the main persons, smart, good looking and rich.The scenarios used in this story are lacking knowledge of so called black ops.The story and its outcome is too obvious.