Posted on 04/16/2010 11:26:02 AM PDT by Travis McGee
I have a rule I tell every author who sends me a book to review: I only write good ones. If I don’t care for it, I’ll decline to say anything. I figure it’s not my place to crush someone else’s labor of love.
So I ventured into Matthew Bracken’s latest offering, “Foreign Enemies and Traitors,” with a bit of trepidation. After all, I’d written reviews in this magazine for the two prior volumes in his trilogy, “Enemies Foreign and Domestic” (Nov. 2005) and “Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista” (Feb. 2007). I called the former “a thrilling first novel…one that engages, grips and doesn’t let up,” and the latter “a brave book [that] nails the probability of near-future disintegration of the Republic with terrifying prescience.”
And then there was Matt’s handwritten note to me on the cover page of his latest: “This is my best effort, it’s all I can give. I hope it makes a difference.”
What if I didn’t care for it? What if I was let down because it couldn’t match the expectations the first two books instilled in me?
No worries. This is the best of the bunch, and that’s saying a lot. As always, Bracken writes a page-turner involving main characters you care about deeply or hate to their evil cores. This third volume is mainly Phil Carson’s story, the Viet Nam veteran we met as a major supporting character in the first two novels. A hurricane has shipwrecked him in Mississippi while smuggling cargo from Central America into a vastly different country than the one he was born into.
It’s the Greater Depression. Following massive earthquakes, the Deep South is under the military rule of a general who is an authority unto himself. The federal government is hopelessly corrupt, presided over by a charismatic subversive who has placed fellow Marxist travelers in key positions of great power. The Northeast and Midwest reflect his socialist centralized federal control. Tennessee has been in rebellion, and the president, anxious to subdue the insurrection so he can turn his attention to the resource-rich Free States of the Northwest, has brought in foreign mercenaries… But it’s not my place to tell you Matt’s story. I want you to watch it unfold for yourself.
It reads like a movie. Bracken paints scenes with a master’s touch, so you can see where his characters are. You can feel their emotions. And when it comes to technical details, explanations of weapons systems, military protocols, intelligence capabilities—nobody does it better.
Still, it’s not an easy book. The details require us to pay attention. And there’s much ugliness—the degradation of some, the racism, the evil (and tell me Bob Bullard, the soulless, ambitious “Director of Rural Pacification,” doesn’t qualify as a great villain!).
If you haven’t read the first two novels, don’t let that stop you from getting this one. It reads well as a standalone book, and I can’t think of a better introduction and inducement to discover the earlier works.
You’ve given enough, Mr. Bracken. Your best is superb. Well done, sir.
CONGRATULATIONS for a great review and best of luck with the book!
David is a stand-up guy who is not afraid to put his name on difficult issues, during a time when the federal government is compiling literal enemies lists.
Unlike many so-called conservatives who head for the tall grass when times get scary.
Congrats on a great review!
Congrats on the review! Well done (but expected) ;-)
Will add to my reading list.
Well done, Matt. I’m ordering my copy this weekend.
I read “Foreign Enemies” and recommend it to all who want a good “end times for America” kind of yarn. Very scary, but let’s hope not prophetic.
Mine was just delivered to my house by a uniformed agent of the federal government.
(My friendly USPS mailman.)
WHOOPS! Wrong cover. I just “google imaged” GUNS Magazine June 2010, and didn’t check.
Hey, they both have pistols on the cover, oriented the same way.
Woo! Great job Travis. They are sitting on my shelf waiting for me. :-)
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Way to go, Travis McGee! I’m gettin’ it!
Was your Domestic Army based at Ft Stewart?
Sounds great!
Kudos for getting the review!
Congrats Matt! All three were great pieces of work. Looking forward to reading the one you are working on now.
I really enjoyed the first two books and encourage anyone on the Freep Banglist to read them.
What will the fourth book bring I wonder! : )
About the first 100 pages of each novel is posted on my website.
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