A drug cartel’s assassination squad ambushes a Columbian judge and his U.S. Marshal bodyguards on an American street. The U.S. is powerless to respond until the Columbian president, eager to break the grip of the cartels on his country, secretly authorizes the U.S. to send covert forces into his country to destroy the cartels' biggest drug labs. A small force of Special Forces soldiers led by Chief Warrant Officer Dave Riley become the "eyes" for the covert air attacks – i.e., the "hammer" – sent to destroy the labs.In Eyes of the Hammer, Bob Mayer's first entry in his The Green Berets series, the author proves his ability to write military thrillers laced not only with adventure, but with authentic detail, too. The thrills come from the writing talent processed by this best-selling multi-genre author (he also writes science fiction and political thrillers), but the authenticity comes straight from his own experience. A West Point graduate, Mayer served as a Green Beret officer, leader of an elite A-team, with a long career of missions under his belt.Mayer takes the reader through the detailed process that goes into planning a covert mission from the original mission brief to the final mission back brief, and the amazing amount of inter-service and inter-agency organization needed to execute a minutely timed operation. He also shows how such a precisely planned operation can fall apart in minutes. Moreover, he shows how the compartmentalized nature of special operations can lead to misuse.Of course, minute details do not a military thriller make. Plot and characters do. Mayer's plot is ripe with twists and turns, betrayals and failures, and enough action to satisfy the most ardent literary thrill-seeker. Best of all, his characters are not two-dimensional super heroes often found in this genre, but real human beings – highly trained and highly skilled people, true – but humans nonetheless.
Very fast-paced special forces story that I really enjoyed! The only Bob Mayer books I had previously read were the three books he co-wrote with Jennifer Crusie. All three of those were fun, and I could tell (having read so many Crusie novels) which portions of those he had written; and one of those three -- Wild Ride -- is one of my favorite books. So, when I got Eyes of the Hammer as a free Kindle download, I knew it would be worth checking out, and it certainly didn't disappoint. Mayer is a former green beret himself, and writes about covert ops in a realistic, believable fashion, but doesn't neglect character development. A real page turner; recommended!
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DrogenkriegDave Riley und seine Gruppe der Green Berets werden für spezielle Übungen eingesetzt, um Sicherheitstests durchzuführen. Bei dem neuen Auftrag jedoch geht es um einen Feldeinsatz. Nach nur kurzer Vorbereitungszeit, die Dave bei weitem zu kurz erscheint, geht es nach Kolumbien. Die dort herrschenden Drogenkartelle sollen so geschwächt werden, dass sie mit ihren Drogen den amerikanischen Markt nicht mehr fluten können. Doch woher kommen die Zielinformationen. Wieso wird die Mission von den Geheimdiensten gedeckt, aber doch im Verborgenen durchgeführt. Welche Rückendeckung gibt es, wenn es die Mission offiziell nicht gibt.Der Name des Autors war mir von seinen gemeinsamen Büchern mit Jennifer Cruise bekannt, die sehr viel Freude machen. Ich war also neugierig, wie er als Einzelautor wirkt. Zwar erwartete ich schon etwas anderes, war dann aber doch überrascht. Mayer, der einen West Point Abschluss hat, widmet sich mit den Green Berets einem in seinem eigentlichen militärischen Hintergrund angesiedelten Genre. Wenn auch in einigen Bereichen ein wenig hart, handelt es sich um ein intelligentes Buch, in dem die Helden nicht immer strahlende Sieger sind und auch nicht jedem Befehl völlig kritiklos folgen. Dave Riley ist ein harter Hund, der seinen Gefühlen und Intuitionen gegenüber nicht verschlossen ist. Wenn es sich bei diesem Buch auch nicht um mein bevorzugtes Genre handelt, war ich letztlich nach einigen Anfangsschwierigkeiten doch von dem Buch und seinen Helden eingenommen, da es mir einen Einblick in eine fremde Weld ermöglichte und zu der Erkenntnis verhalf, dass harte Hunde eben auch Menschen sind.
—Wal.li
After having read the first in the Area 51 series, I went into this book with expectations. Not high ones but middling ones and even those weren't met.Overall, the story was interesting but I found that the telling became bogged down in military planning/execution minutia. I'm not a person who hates all detail and just wants big, 'splody things. I love detail but this detail was not pertinent to the story and seemed to be a page filler at times.However, the item that deducted a couple of stars was the unnecessary romance sitting in the middle of the story. I spotted it from a mile away and it just got worse as the book progressed. So much so that I am not interested in reading further in case this "develops" into a major thing.I'll stick with his Area 51 series. It has promise and is entertaining.
—Frank
