The Dogs of War

I loved this book because the characters are real, the plot seems authentic, and the hero achieves what men always desire...to use ones' honor for an honorable cause.

There are numberless tiresome paperback "action novels" about mercenaries. Most of these are fairly predictable and very comicbook-like in their quality. This is not one of them! Mr. Forsyth, who actually researched what he writes about, has created a very realistic scenario of a modern-day mercenary action, and the powers that be that brought it about. A geologist finds evidence of massive ore-deposits in a typically unstable African republic (its description is very much like Liberia) whose major industry is mining. A British corporation has mining interests already in country, and wants to capitalize off of this find. However, the current president, is a corrupt and eccentric despot of questionable sanity...and he is favoring political and economic ties with the Soviet Union. The solution: the British corporation hires a team of professional free-lance soldiers to stage a coup, and put a new president in place, one who will favor the corporate interest! The major part of the story is the complex procedures in which the mercenary team makes its preparations in a year prior to the action, emphasizing secrecy. The actual action on objective is short, sharp and decisive...but with an outcome that the corporate sponsor didn't quite expect!

I re-read this book every couple of years. Sometimes I buzz through the parts about Swiss bank account transfers and customs-house forms. Other times I drink in all those technical details like a foaming schooner of Flemish ale. Depends on your mood, I guess. Regardless, I always savor the action sequences, which are relayed in splendid detail, and Forsyth's unique brand of gallows humor. This is about how one man sets up and carries out a coup d'etat, dollar by dollar, bullet by bullet. It it not just a shoot-em-up, and those who wish to read such a book should go elsewhere. But for those who savor the details, and camaraderie shared among wild geese in an Ostend bar at the end of a good day's scheming and plotting, this book is one in a million.

Great opening, great setup, great action, FANTASTIC ending.