2008 Woodie Awards
By Order of the President: A class-act (for the most part)
Pranav Kulkarni
Issue date: 10/19/06 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
Esteemed military procedural veteran W. E. B. Griffin, author of numerous stellar military-oriented works, commences his new Presidential Agent series in great style with "By Order of the President," a swift, tenacious, tension-filled book.
When a Boeing 727 suddenly goes missing from a remote African airfield, authorities immediately fear a 9/11-type calamity. With all the various enforcement agencies, CIA, FBI, DEA and NSA, jockeying for position to get the best information first, nothing actually gets done and only more pandemonium results. Frustrated by their incompetence, the President assigns Major Charles Castillo based on a recommendation from his trusted all-in-one Army man aide. Major Castillo is also a Secret Service aide among numerous other things and is charged to uncover facts known by the different agencies regarding the disappearance of the airplane. Castillo's main objective is to unearth when each agencies knew what and what they could have done to prevent the hijacking.
Griffin proceeds with the story at a leisurely pace in the beginning, introducing Castillo via a lengthy flashback. To Griffin's credit, the book hardly seems like a military work during those pages, resembling more the writing of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. I began having nightmarish flashes of enduring "Pride and Prejudice" and "Jane Eyre" in high school during that portion of the book. However once the book returns to the present and to the task at hand, it is as compelling a read as any. In fact, the book's un-put-down-ability rating is slightly less than that of Dan Brown's riveting "Angels & Demons."
Griffin is in complete command of the subject matter, be it while writing about the most fundamental of military protocol or while embellishing important confrontations between characters with subtle individual-defining traits. What sets Griffin's work apart from other military thrillers is his interest in developing the characters and the story rather than drowning the narrative in a multitude of explosions. Unlike Dale Brown's Hammerheads (reviewed Spring 2006), "By Order of the President" is more intent on highlighting the human aspect of the ordeal. One glaring blemish is that the President orders Castillo to investigate the information possessed by the agencies regarding the airplane. The book, however, mainly focuses on Castillo trying to prevent the hijackers from following through on their plan of using the plane as a missile.
But that little infraction notwithstanding, "By Order of the President" is as good as a book gets. Crowded with a colorful array of characters surrounding the charming Castillo and anchored skillfully by Griffin's writing, this book is, on the whole, a winner. Hesitantly recommended.
Caveats: Profanity
When a Boeing 727 suddenly goes missing from a remote African airfield, authorities immediately fear a 9/11-type calamity. With all the various enforcement agencies, CIA, FBI, DEA and NSA, jockeying for position to get the best information first, nothing actually gets done and only more pandemonium results. Frustrated by their incompetence, the President assigns Major Charles Castillo based on a recommendation from his trusted all-in-one Army man aide. Major Castillo is also a Secret Service aide among numerous other things and is charged to uncover facts known by the different agencies regarding the disappearance of the airplane. Castillo's main objective is to unearth when each agencies knew what and what they could have done to prevent the hijacking.
Griffin proceeds with the story at a leisurely pace in the beginning, introducing Castillo via a lengthy flashback. To Griffin's credit, the book hardly seems like a military work during those pages, resembling more the writing of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. I began having nightmarish flashes of enduring "Pride and Prejudice" and "Jane Eyre" in high school during that portion of the book. However once the book returns to the present and to the task at hand, it is as compelling a read as any. In fact, the book's un-put-down-ability rating is slightly less than that of Dan Brown's riveting "Angels & Demons."
Griffin is in complete command of the subject matter, be it while writing about the most fundamental of military protocol or while embellishing important confrontations between characters with subtle individual-defining traits. What sets Griffin's work apart from other military thrillers is his interest in developing the characters and the story rather than drowning the narrative in a multitude of explosions. Unlike Dale Brown's Hammerheads (reviewed Spring 2006), "By Order of the President" is more intent on highlighting the human aspect of the ordeal. One glaring blemish is that the President orders Castillo to investigate the information possessed by the agencies regarding the airplane. The book, however, mainly focuses on Castillo trying to prevent the hijackers from following through on their plan of using the plane as a missile.
But that little infraction notwithstanding, "By Order of the President" is as good as a book gets. Crowded with a colorful array of characters surrounding the charming Castillo and anchored skillfully by Griffin's writing, this book is, on the whole, a winner. Hesitantly recommended.
Caveats: Profanity