Rating: 
Summary: Great Adventure!
Review: What can I say? The End of Enemies is the kind of suspense-thriller that I
love to find, but so rarely do these days. It grabbed me from the first
page and never let go. Fun, action, intrigue, espionage, heroes, villians,
traitors.... It was all there!I especially enjoyed Blackwood's deft interweaving of character- and
plot-lines and the "insider knowledge" sprinkled throughout the book, as
well as all the exotic locales the reader is taken to. I felt like I was
living a real adventure -- not just reading another canned storyline with
characters that have nothing invested in what's going on. If suspense-thrillers are your kind of book (and even if they're not, you
may be surprised by how much you enjoy it), try The End of Enemies. I
wasn't disappointed and I don't think you will be either. PS -- According to Amazon, Blackwood's next one, The Wall of Night, is due
this month sometime. I'm ready!
Rating:
Summary: The End of Enemies is full of action and intrigue!
Review: When I first saw this book, I wasn't sure whether or not I'd like it. Espionage/political thrillers never really attracted me. But as I read through the first few chapters, I was instantly caught up in the complex portrait of the world that Blackwood creates. He masterfully ties together information and revelations from disparate yet linked characters to form an intricate web of intrigue, with explosive bursts of action in between. All of the characters are fully fleshed out, and all have their own agenda. All in all, it's a very fresh and exciting adventure. I'd recommend this book to just about anyone, and I'm definitely looking forward to Blackwood's next offering.
Rating: 
Summary: Standard global conspiracy silliness
Review: When I was a young lad in the 50s and 60s, I read all books of The Hardy Boys series wherein these two clean-cut, drug-free, American teenagers outwit a wide variety of scoundrels. In THE END OF ENEMIES, Frank and Joe Hardy have grown up to become Briggs Tanner and Ian Cahil, two clean-cut, nobly heroic, ex-Special Forces types employed by a private firm that does top secret wet work for the U.S. government. (Plausible deniability for the President, you see.) In any case, Tanner and Cahil now have the opportunity to save the world, or at least the Eastern Mediterranean. This potboiler is a standard global conspiracy thriller involving leftover WWII munitions, a renegade Japanese industrialist, Arab terrorists, Syrian plotters, seduced damsels, the FBI, the Mossad, traitors, blackmail, the CIA, and a Doomsday plot. It's entertaining in a silly sort of way, much like the Impossible Missions Force movies starring Tom Cruise. I don't know. Maybe it's because I've read so many similar storylines that I've become jaded. In this case, my peevishness stems principally from the fact that all the characters, whether American, Canadian, British, Japanese, Israeli, Russian, Syrian or Palestinian, all "sound" like customers recruited by Central Casting out of a Seattle corner Starbucks and dressed up in costumes for day of play acting. (This is a failing of quite a few works of espionage fiction, not just this one.) Moreover, author Grant Blackwood is occasionally incredibly sloppy in the small details. I picked up on a few (and wonder how many more I missed). The page numbers refer to the paperback edition. 1. A woman with a femur broken in five places - imagine the cast - is not going to be seen having "curled herself into a ball". (Page 77)
2. Except for the "scrambled eggs" on the visors of Commanders and above, the billed caps of American naval officers do not carry rank badges. (Page 238)
3. It seems highly improbable that an American fleet attack submarine on WWII patrol is going to have an Ensign, the lowest officer grade, as the Executive Officer, i.e. the second-in-command. (Page 1) OK, ok, ok - so I'm picky, picky, picky. This book admittedly has more elements that are positive than are negative, but the fact remains that it's no better than an average representative of the genre. Worse than that, the author is so busy tying up loose ends at the conclusion that the last 6 pages are patently ridiculous. If you want to read a novel that deals with Middle Eastern terrorism and is well crafted, as opposed to being slopped out any old way, then I would recommend John le Carré's THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL or Gerald Seymour's A LINE IN THE SAND.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, yeah!
Review: When it comes to literary entertainment, I have one over-riding criterion: do I get lost in the story and forget about little things like eating and sleeping? This book passes with flying colors! At the risk of sounding cliche, I honestly could not put this book down. I stayed up late reading it and then picked it up first thing in the morning, even before my coffee. But in order for this to occur, the plot and characters all have to be believable. After all, this book is not science fiction or fantasy where you need to suspend belief. Instead, it was very real and Briggs Tanner, although a hero, was also very real. Thank you Mr. Blackwood for your great writing!
Rating:
Summary: Who is Grant Blackwood?
Review: Who is Grant Blackwood and where has he come from? My guess is that we are looking at a new book by Cussler, De Brul, Bond or even Clancy. Because End of Enemies is just as good as any of the books those guys have written. A great read. One you can't put down. And as good at the start of the book as it was at the end. So come on "Grant". Tell us who you really are.
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