The Secret Soldier by Alex Berenson

Book:  The Secret Soldier 

Author:  Alex Berenson 

Grade:  C

Recommended To:  Magicians, soldiers, 

I just finished the 5th book in this John Wells series and I have a piece of advice for Berenson:  Stop writing a book a year, your writing suffers if you do that.

This book is okay.  It isn't great.  It is actually about the same as the other John Wells books, so average.  This book is about the internal politics of Saudi Arabia and I had a lot of trouble getting into it.  I started the book a month ago, put it down and just finished it yesterday.

The problem is that the story just isn't that compelling. Do I really care if part of the Saudi royal family is trying to bring down the other half?  Not really.  Do I really care that John Wells has some "moral dilemma" about killing people.  No, that's his job.  He was an undercover soldier with the terrorists a couple of books ago, you can't convince me now that he has feelings and has to "add 6 more men to his death list."  If he doesn't like killing people, or at least isn't bothered by it, then he should find a new line of work, and then where would the story series be?

Berenson has this annoying habit of attempting to create suspense by starting a sentence -

And then continuing that sentence on the next line.  Um, stop that.  It is super annoying and I actually add pauses into my reading, so then part of the time I forget what I was reading in the line above if there is a pause.  It isn't suspenseful and it isn't a new way to write books.  It is just dumb.

This is a good book for someone who likes action novels where there is a strong hero.  It is a fast read and kept my interest after I got back into the book.

Happy Reading!!

The Silent Man by Alex Berenson

Book:  The Silent Man 

Author:  Alex Berenson 


Grade: C+

Recommended To:  Spy Fans who want a book to be over as fast as possible.


This is Alex Berenson's third book in the John Wells series.  I also reviewed his second book and you can find that review here.  This book was better, but Berenson needs to work on his character development and either needs to ditch the romance or improve upon it.

This book is about some terrorists that obtain two nuclear bombs from the Russian arsenal and then bring them to the United States to dismantle and use in their own "special weapon."  His words, not mine; but that phrase kept making me thing of a bad romance novel instead of a spy/thriller.  In a sort of unrelated story line, a guy from the second novel also tries to kill Wells, but instead shoots his GF, Exley.  And, Wells, being the completely one-dimensional character that he is, can only think about revenge.

Here's the first problem.  These characters are so flat!  Wells has zero personality and all he wants to do is kill kill kill.  That makes for a very fast read, but not necessarily for a good story.  Also, Wells doesn't do anything that the CIA tells him to do.  He goes rogue a lot, which lends an unrealistic element to this novel.   Sure, he's a national hero from Book #1, but does he really lack all common sense?  Apparently so. 

The second problem is that the romance between John Wells and Jenny Exley is one of the worst that I've read in a spy/thriller novel in a very long time.  For example, she gets shot and he hangs out by her bed for a while, but can't think of anything else but murdering the guy that he thinks did this to her.  So he leaves her, and of course she asks him not to go, but he does anyway.  At this point, I just want them to break-up.  He has earned the worst-boyfriend-of-the-decade award, and I mostly want her to succumb to her wounds so I never have to read about their "relationship" again.  Berenson tries to describe the characters' emotions with their actions and it makes for an extraordinarily thin love story.  In my opinion the entire line needs to be scrapped.  These books would be better without it.

Finally, and I know I'm going long here, Berenson spends 98% of the novel trying to find this bomb.  Russia is playing games, the terrorists are dismantling the "special weapon" in extreme detail,  Wells is flying all over Europe and terrorizing children, and then BOOM, the story is finished in literally 5 pages.  All because Wells sees an SUV that is probably carrying the bomb.  Sigh.  I felt like I invested a lot of time in reading the first 98% only to be totally let down by the lack of action at the end.  Let's be honest, we only read these books for the action and this failed.

So, this book gets a C+.  That's the best I can do.

Either way, this is a very fast read and I recommend it to people who love spy/thriller novels and don't much care about the substance or characters in the story.

The Ghost War by Alex Berenson

Book: The Ghost War (John Wells #2)

Author: Alex Berenson

Grade: C

Recommended To: Anyone who enjoys a quick action novel, but doesn't mind a lot of plot holes.


The Ghost War is Alex Berenson's second book and like many authors he has chosen to focus on one character and place that character in a different situation in each novel. That character is John Wells who is a Jack Bauer/ 24-esq type figure that can basically save America, no matter what. In this novel John Wells has to stop a imminent war between China and the United States.

Here's what I liked about the novel:

1. It is a fast read. Alex breaks up his novel with short paragraphs and large text which made the 539 pages of this paperback fly by. Further, if you don't really care about plot and just want something entertaining, then this is a great book. But, I found that the holes were too numerous and treacherous to allow me to enjoy this book.

Here's what I didn't like about the novel:

1. Compared to the first John Wells novel, this plot was extremely thin. Berenson spends 500 pages working up to a finale that is only about 50 pages long and then struggles in those last few pages to explain the first 3/4 of the book.

***Spoiler Alert***

The reason that China is in a struggle with the US is that one man, Li, wants to rule China all by himself. So, he orchestrates an incredibly complex plan involving Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea in order to provoke the US into attacking China. Honestly, WHAT? The whole "reason" presented behind this nonsense is that Li thinks he can do a better job of running China than the current guy in charge. I felt like I waited 450 pages to find out the excellent reason behind this "war" and then was totally disappointed as Berenson struggled to put some emphasis behind this completely ridiculous reason.

2. Berenson has obviously researched his novels, even though his plot line is inexcusably weak, and he likes to show off his knowledge by making the dialogue authentic. So, he uses a lot of military and CIA lingo that the average reader probably wouldn't know. Then, annoyingly, he explains what the lingo means even before allowing the character to finish the sentence. This results in a series of asides where the narrator is explaining a bunch of stuff to the reader that adds nothing to the book and just draws attention to the choppiness of the narrative. It. is. distracting.

Overall, I give this book a solid C. I think it was a marked step down from The Faithful Spy which was his first John Wells novel and merited at least a B grade. Look for that review in the coming weeks as I try to catch up on everything I've read this year!

Happy Reading!