A good read...
Wednesday, 8. March 2006, 08:20:09
Yesterday I finished Cross of Honour, a rather fleshy (574 pages!) paperback thriller by David Hackworth which offers a unique look into the US army. Everyone who knows me, surely knows that I love to read good books. Preferably English books, not translations to my mothertongue (Dutch). For one simple reason: I believe a writer is much more able to express feelings and describe locations/situations in English language than any other language (at least from the ones I'm able to understand). And also, most translations to Dutch seem to be done by translators from the Netherlands and not from Belgium, resulting in the use of expressions and words that may seem alien to Belgian people.
Anyway, let's cut to the chase. Cross of Honour is a story about Alexander 'Sandy' Caine, a US soldier enlisted in a Special Forces team. A great carreer lies in front of him, but only one thing stands in his way: his cowardly father, who supposedly got his entire squad killed during the Vietnam war. During a secret mission in Somalia however, an old friend who served with Sandy's father, tells him that his father wasn't the coward everyone thinks he was, but a genuine hero. Baffled by this revelation, Sandy decides to dig a bit deeper into it. And with the help of a befriended journalist, Abby Mancini, he slowly unravels the real thruth about his father. But the road to enlightenment isn't easy, and a lot of important people will try to stop him from finding what he seeks...
The book has a great start, picturing our main character during missions throughout Somalia. The author was able to portray everything in such a way that you don't need a lot of imagination to be able to mentally enter the world he describes. At moments, the book is not for the faint of hearted: Whenever someone gets killed, you can expect a gruesome and detailed description of the character's death. There are also some steamy sex scenes which may seem a bit out of place sometimes, but they add that extra bit of tension to the overal mood of the story.
Although the story starts out rather slow, bit by bit the story unravels itself to the reader, adding new characters and plot twists at a regular pace. Not everything may seem clear from the beginning, but by the end, everything falls into place, revealing the bigger picture. For example, it took me a couple of chapters until I realised that "Sandy" had to be a short version of the name "Alexander". Both the main character and his father are called Alexander, hence my confusion at times.
All taken into consideration, Cross of Honour is a descent book with a good storyline. If you like thrillers and love the army and guns, be sure to pick up a copy of it. I'm pretty sure you'll have a good time reading it, as I did...
Anyway, let's cut to the chase. Cross of Honour is a story about Alexander 'Sandy' Caine, a US soldier enlisted in a Special Forces team. A great carreer lies in front of him, but only one thing stands in his way: his cowardly father, who supposedly got his entire squad killed during the Vietnam war. During a secret mission in Somalia however, an old friend who served with Sandy's father, tells him that his father wasn't the coward everyone thinks he was, but a genuine hero. Baffled by this revelation, Sandy decides to dig a bit deeper into it. And with the help of a befriended journalist, Abby Mancini, he slowly unravels the real thruth about his father. But the road to enlightenment isn't easy, and a lot of important people will try to stop him from finding what he seeks...
The book has a great start, picturing our main character during missions throughout Somalia. The author was able to portray everything in such a way that you don't need a lot of imagination to be able to mentally enter the world he describes. At moments, the book is not for the faint of hearted: Whenever someone gets killed, you can expect a gruesome and detailed description of the character's death. There are also some steamy sex scenes which may seem a bit out of place sometimes, but they add that extra bit of tension to the overal mood of the story.
Although the story starts out rather slow, bit by bit the story unravels itself to the reader, adding new characters and plot twists at a regular pace. Not everything may seem clear from the beginning, but by the end, everything falls into place, revealing the bigger picture. For example, it took me a couple of chapters until I realised that "Sandy" had to be a short version of the name "Alexander". Both the main character and his father are called Alexander, hence my confusion at times.
All taken into consideration, Cross of Honour is a descent book with a good storyline. If you like thrillers and love the army and guns, be sure to pick up a copy of it. I'm pretty sure you'll have a good time reading it, as I did...
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