Kay's Reviews > Dead Fall

3'ish stars... a bit better than his last 3 novels.

Don't get me wrong, I love and won't miss a Scot Harvath novel. Thor's political-military action thrillers have always been a go-to so I'll keep reading them but they have been lackluster for a couple of years. I mostly like Dead Fall but I didn't care much for the subplots.

When the war between Ukraine and Russia broke out, 25 year-old lawyer Anna Royko of Ukrainian descent from Chicago could no longer sit back and do nothing and decided to head to the conflict zone.

Attaching herself to an NGO, Anna distributes supplies to various orphanages in need. One particular orphanage for special needs children in Mykolaiv was bombed and clearly needed more help than just supplies.

Couldn't shake the special needs orphanage off her mind, Anna quits the NGO to return to the orphanage against the advice of other volunteers.

Bad decision! Very bad. A Russian savage mercenary unit took her and thus our hero Scot Harvath is called to the rescue. Because the US can't have boots on the ground, it's just Harvath and a handful of local forces.

This is what I like about Harvath!! I need more like this, his badassness.

There are a couple of things that bugged me, one of which Thor included a section about mass rape and Viagra. Wasn't this also claimed by the US Sec of State about Gaddafi that many world organizations including US intelligence looked into and found no evidence? In short, it was BS. Here it is again... a recycled story. I have trouble believing young men away from girlfriends or wives for months/year need Viagra. How about reports that their troops were freezing and starving but whad'ya know... they have Viagra.

So this one is a mix for me but mostly I did enjoy the action, current events, and the main storyline.