thriller

Excellent Novel. Easily goes from the sweeping picture to the specifics. Topical Recommend for those who like military-techno thrillers ( )

It wasn't a Gray Man novel (no gray man here), but it was still good. Lots of military goings on, lots of tanks and guns and politically based motivations. ( )

This is an excellent read and I'm extremely happy that I did not give up (a few times I thought of doing due to detailed tanks and artillery). What pulled me through were the fascinating cast of characters and great writing. You rooted for them, bonded with many and grieved for those with early departure - surprisingly this includes the French and Polish characters.
This book is Army/Marine Corps heavy with support from the Navy and Air Force. ( )

A Chinese Communist Special Forces unit assassinates Taiwan’s pro-unification candidate for President and the current Taiwanese administration is blamed for the murder. The Chinese government created the crisis to provide a justification for it’s planned invasion of Taiwan. Satellite and ground intelligence reveal that China has positioned a massive invasion force on the mainland directly across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan. In response, the United States repositions its air, sea, and land forces to the South China Sea to discourage the invasion.

Unknown by China and the United States, the President of Russia has manipulated the international crisis to trigger the reduction of military forces in Europe. With the American military assets at a minimum, Russia launches an invasion of Poland and Germany, and begins a covert maneuver to invade Africa. Its ultimate goal is to gain control of a rare earth metals mine in Kenya. Only meager forces are in position to oppose Russia’s overwhelming advantage in troops and material.

“Red Metal” is an example of the observation that the works of authors who become famous often decline in quality because they give less attention to editing. The first two hundred pages of this massive book sets up the scenario in a much too leisurely fashion. Numerous scenes and some entire chapters could be eliminated. The frequent use of technical jargon, model numbers, military acronyms, incidental details, and other minutiae that do not advance the plot becomes a bore.

Some aspects of the plot are little more than superficial contrivances designed to emphasize the desperate situation confronting the allies. For example, the Russian troops use drones to enable precision targeting of their artillery. Why wouldn’t the allies be able to use drones in a similar way? Greaney mentions that they have drones late in the book. Why wouldn’t the allies direct their riflemen to shot down the drones?

The slow-paced introduction is followed by four hundred pages of relentless action before ending with a thirty-eight-page postscript. I’m not a fan of prolonging a novel to tell readers what happens to each major character after the story concludes, but in this instance, I found some of the postscripts to be emotionally moving. They counter the focus on military strategy and exciting battles with a reminder that war exacts tremendous personal costs.

I recommend “Red Metal” for readers who enjoy military strategy and life and death battle scenes. A skillful edit that removed technical minutiae and unnecessary details would have produced a tighter, superior novel. ( )