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: The Double Agents
Summary: 1 Stars
What a disappointment. I have been a WEB fan and have read all his military books and have always looked forward to each new one and enjoyed them immensly. However the last two have been terrible. I could barely bring myself to finish Double Agents. The plot was preposterous and the writing was terrible. I would be willing to bet that WEB didn't do much if any of the writing. If he did his skills have deteriorated significantly. It is clear to me that Dad is trying to hand off a money making machine to Junior who just can't write with the same skill and expertise that WEB did. I doubt that I would bother to read another Griffin/Butterworth book as there are just too many good books out there.
Book Review: The Double Agents
Summary: 4 Stars
Good story, well written. It is a throwback to when the story is not overshadowed by the technology and the action. Very enjoyable if you like the spy adventure genreBook Review: The Double Agents, W.E.B. Griffin
Summary: 3 Stars
I have read every other book in this series and this one does not measure up to his standards of writing.Book Review: The Great disapointment
Summary: 2 Stars
I drove 60 miles round trip the day this book came out. When I put it down, the feeling was that I had been really cheated. I have come to expect a great deal from Griffin,I have every book he has ever written. This one just didnt have the pace and excitement of a Griffin book,I almost feel that he had very little to do with it. A third of the book was given over to a sub-plot involving the British which we know historically was not an OSS deal. This was filler. There was too much space devoted to endless rehash of the characters. Most of the menn at war characters which made the first four books were never mentioned.Book Review: The combination of Griffin father and son continues to disappoint
Summary: 2 Stars
"The Saboteurs", the first acknowledged collaboration of W.E.B. Griffin and son William E. Butterworth IV was awful. It wasn't a story, as much as it was a mess. "The Double Agents" isn't much of an improvement.
At least the endless need of Major Richard Canidy to empty his bladder is almost gone, reduced to a single entirely gratuitous episode. Canidy is supposedly a hotshot fighter pilot recruited into the Office of Strategic Services. To make the character work, the authors have to cast Canidy as a "loose cannon," someone willing to make life or death decisions on the spot, regardless of the consequences. The characterization doesn't work. Canidy is a shallow character and the plot supports him with one transparent device after another. Everything Canidy needs is always close at hand, unbeleivable in war time. When Canidy scopes out an enemy installation, just by chance a high ranking German officer is there waiting to be assasinated. Unlike Griffin the elder's many solo offerings, there is no suspense here. No cleverness either.
Dad Griffin built his reputation on mixing historical fact with inventive fiction. Here, fiction overwhelms fact, though the Griffins apparently hope you won't catch on.
For example, one of the many (implausible) backstories is about The Man Who Never Was: World War II's Boldest Counter-Intelligence Operation, a deception operation mounted by British intelligence. Rather than use the interesting and true story, the Griffins introduce Ian Fleming (the man who created the James Bond character), David Niven (a British actor who left a great Hollywoo career to return to Britain and join the army) and Peter Ustinov (who achieved some measure of acting fame beginning in the 1950s and served as Niven's batman as a private in WWII). All three men were real and all three served in the British military. However, nothing even remotely resembling the Three Stooges comedy act the Griffins describe regarding this operation ever took place - and that fact is well documented.
There's also a silly sub-plot carried forward from "The Saboteurs". Canidy's fabulously wealthy, talented and large-breasted girlfriend, Ann Chambers, has been missing since an air raid on London. A lot of words are wasted on the missing woman and the search for her by important personages, an unlikely event in the midst of war time.
Those of you accustomed to the elder Griffin's deft handling of combat action will be disappointed. There is virtually none and as with "The Saboteurs", what little there is poorly done.
Another of the improbabilities is the number of characters to whom the Griffins ascribe knowledge of the Manhattan Project. General Dick Groves, the security obsessed military commander of the project, is probably spinning in his grave at the idea so many people so low on the totem pole had specific knowledge. In other words, like so many other parts of this book, this is unbelievable.
The double agents theme of the title barely makes an appearance.
Overall, it's saddening to see. W.E.B. Griffin is a fine writer who has litearlly written dozens of great adventures. But his attempt to involve his son simply isn't working.
Jerry