Breach Zone

Shadow Ops, Book #3

By Myke Cole

ISBN# 9780425256374

Author’s Website:  http://mykecole.com/

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Sammy

Synopsis:

The Great Reawakening did not come quietly. Across the country and in every nation, people began “coming up Latent,” developing terrifying powers—summoning storms, raising the dead, and setting everything they touch ablaze. Those who Manifest must choose: become a sheepdog who protects the flock or a wolf who devours it…

In the wake of a bloody battle at Forward Operating Base Frontier and a scandalous presidential impeachment, Lieutenant Colonel Jan Thorsson, call sign “Harlequin,” becomes a national hero and a pariah to the military that is the only family he’s ever known.

In the fight for Latent equality, Oscar Britton is positioned to lead a rebellion in exile, but a powerful rival beats him to the punch: Scylla, a walking weapon who will stop at nothing to end the human-sanctioned apartheid against her kind.

When Scylla’s inhuman forces invade New York City, the Supernatural Operations Corps are the only soldiers equipped to prevent a massacre. In order to redeem himself with the military, Harlequin will be forced to face off with this havoc-wreaking woman from his past, warped by her power into something evil… (Goodreads)

Review:

This story starts with a bang, with the characters from the last book. Right away we get some more insight into Scylla  and how she feels and where she is willing to go for what she wants.  I really liked how the story started.

After jumping right into the thick of things this story starts to feel like two different stories. The author takes us from the now to six years earlier and for me it didn’t work. Every time I would start to catch the flow of the storyline it would jump back in time or go forward to the action. In some books this can work, but in this case it was terribly distracting for me. I found myself wanting to read either the six years earlier or the action parts. If felt like start and stop.

Still with that going on I thought it was well written, with some very interesting ideas about what side you pick and what is best for everyone. The military aspects of the story were written in a realistic way, and had great action to them.  The politics were also, written and described in such a realistic way that it was like watching CNN with all the politicians saying what they think people want to here.

As, the story goes on more and more characters are introduced not just magic folks but also non magic people. It got to be a bit confusing, many were not even secondary, but written in to fodder or take an order to do something. Perhaps some of the characters were from book one, which I didn’t read, hence the possible confusion on my part.

With the ending open for another book I hope the author stays in one time frame or at least not change it up so often.  I really enjoyed getting to know where the people came from and how the powers and politics changed them and again the action was superb in this story, however, the delivery just was not my cup of tea.

I would recommend this story for anyone who has read the rest of the books in this series, because overall it does add to the storyline. It is well written with intricate military strategy, politics and great characters.

When the next book comes out I will want to read it as well, with hope that the style of writing and setting things up is more like book 2, which was more to my personal taste.