The Barrabas Creed

The second entry from Preston, and I thought overall a bit of an improvement. The writer has a long winded way of storytelling that slows down the adventure to a snails pace, and leaves little room for a climactic ending action sequence. Despite these flaws, I did enjoy the book much more than Pacific Payload. Bolivia is the stage, and the cocaine trade is the mission the SOBs eventually get around to. I enjoyed the methods used by Hayes and O'Toole to trick the military officials, great reading there. There are a few moments in the villains perspective that were good, and the antics of Nanos and Billy Two were fun to read as usual. Barrabas's role was pretty much an organizer and a scout, the expected action near the end never really happened as it was hinted that the coke factory was vulnerable to attack from the water, but that didn't even happen. Why do that when you can just bomb the place from the air? Disappointing as Barrabas was just an observer rather than getting into the action. The gang was split into smaller teams with their own assignments, and they all coordinated to the final action but this ending was very brief, blink and you will miss it. Much better books in the series than this, but I did enjoy it for what it was. If you are looking just for the better books to read in this series, this is one of those that doesn't make the highlight list, but ok enough if you want to read them all.

The build up to this one was good with the Swedish Prime Minister being assassinated to cover up the fact that one of his researchers has come across a process to create a synthetic cocaine. The focus moves to Bolivia where a complicated set of moves are taking place where a coup is going to be enacted but it is only a cover as the US is being suckered into believing the Bolivian administration is clamping down on the cultivation of poppy plants and actively clamping down on the production of cocaine as per the US wishes for massive amounts of foreign aid when in fact the new process of creating the synthetic product will in fact flood the shores of the US. Sound OK yea I was thinking to myself at least but wow what a let down. As per this author's previous title TOO much wanking on about nothing for so long where actually nothing bloody happens. Approaching the end of the title and it is all rushed as we are running out of room and wham the processing plant is destroyed with one bomb which conveniently ignites chemicals stored in the plant causing what was initially believed to be a nuclear explosion such is the force of the explosion. The attacks on the other sites also were rushed and unfulfilling leaving this reviewer wanting more and left feeling disappointed. I was left with the impression of an author trying to show his strong knowledge of the characters he is writing about but failing to nail a good start plot idea which was a shame this should have been much better given the good start. Not one to recommend in this series after what has come previously.