The Double Agents (Men at War) by W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Double Agents (Men at War)
Book Review: Men at War Series Returns!
Summary: 5 Stars
Richard Canidy returns as the ultimate OSS agent during WW-2. An great collaberation between W.E.B. Griffin and W.E. Butterworth IV. Another for the fans of Griffin, Jack Higgins, Tom Clancy, Joe Weber, and Walter J. Boyne. Griffin is as Clancy once said the master of the military series.
Book Review: More didactic than ever.
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm a Griffin fan. But I have to say that every so often his books just get laborious. To his (and his son's) credit I have to say that it must be difficult to write a new stand-alone novel that is really a continuation of a series. The book that preceded this one, THE SABOTEURS, was typically good Griffin. But this one wastes so much time catching a reader up on what has happened in the previous books that it bogs way down.
The other thing in this book that is pretty consistent with Griffin is his compulsion to instruct and describe everything in superfluous detail And then repeat it. When he describes a vehicle or an airplane or a gun he tells us everything, seemingly, about the invention, manufacture, the operation and almost the serial number, for heaven's sake.
And then there's the constantly repetitive rank of every officer mentioned. We get it already! We know who they are. Almost everytime he goes back to the nonsense with Ian Fleming, David Niven and Peter Ustinov in this book he is compelled to tell us their ranks all over again.It's almost as though he's being paid by the word the way writers were years ago in some genres.
I don't know the answer. I didn't have this problem with Patrick O'Brian's fabulous sea series. Each book stood on its own and if you wanted to know what happened earlier, I think O'Brian felt you should go read the previous book. It's sort of like trying to watch "The West Wing" or "The Sopranos" just a couple of times a year. You do indeed feel out of the loop. But Griffin and his son need to find a better way to catch new readers up on the action without boring all the rest of his (their) fans. This is a very boring book that hardly moves the story ahead at all.
Book Review: Not Good
Summary: 2 Stars
For WEB Griffin (and son)This is a very short book, only 333 pages. There is none of the plot or character development of his earlier works. In fact, approximately 20% of this book describes plot lines from previous book in this series. WEB Griffin is a talented writer, but his work with his son is second rate, at best. This book leaves many plot lines unfinished. Two sars is generous on my part.
Book Review: Not up to Par
Summary: 2 Stars
I had just finished reading Griffin's "The Hunters" in his Presidential Agent series, which he writes by himself, and was looking forward to another good Griffin read. Unfortunately The Double Agents, which he writes with his son, does not measure up to those he writes by himself.
He has two plots going - as usual - but never really brings them together - no reason to have them in the same book, except that since it is fairly short, by Griffin standards, that they needed to fill up some pages.
The writing is not as crisp as I have come to expect from Griffin.
A final point he uses the term "went missing" and "gone missing" - two phrases that have crept into usage via the 24 hour cable news shows - phrases that would never have been used during WWII - when the simple "disappeared" would have served the purpose nicely.
Book Review: Old Friends Return with more OSS WWII action
Summary: 5 Stars
If you already enjoyed the other OSS books, you will also enjoy this one. The Griffin/Butterworth family does not write anything but five star books. This one brings back our old friends (MAJ Dick Canidy, Charity Hoche, Ann Chambers, LTC Ed Stevens, MAJ David Niven, PFC Peter Ustinov, CDR Ian Fleming, CPT Stan Fine, and CPT the Duchess Stanfield) and introduces new ones, just like real life. For those of you who feel that OSS action is too tame, compared to Army (Brotherhood of War)and Marine Corps (The Corps) actions, I feel sorry. I also enjoy those books for their combat action, but that does not detract from the major accomplishments that are chronicled in these OSS books, particularly this one.
In DOUBLE AGENTS, Dick Canidy and his friends use their intelligent efforts to good purpose. They build the story for the Corpse that was used to mislead the Germans into thinking that we would not attack Normandy (this was the subject of William Stevenson's entire book, 'A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War'). They destroy supplies of deadly Tabun gas. They recruit people for the Manhattan project. They also prepare an OSS infrastructure to gather intelligence for the impending invasions of Sicily and Italy that will divert German troops from Europe. All of this is just the framework for even more, including dealing with 'Lucky' Luciano.
As always, the Griffin books mix fact and fiction (faction?) to tell us a great story and stimulate our interest in checking actual military history, to find out which is which. I love this, even though it has caused my library to swell by hundreds of books.
There are no bad Griffin/Butterworth books, only books that are good for different reasons. I have read every one I could get, and that includes most of them written under 11 different pseudonyms.
Read this book and recommend it to your friends. I have already bought more than 10 copies as gifts and will continue to buy more.