Rainbow Six (Tom Clancy, 1998)

This is a first: actually finishing a Tom Clancy book. In the past I have started but not completed Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears and The Cardinal of the Kremlin, and I will say that none of these are necessarily bad (all, in fact, are very well written), but undertaking politically dense techno thrillers that feature many chapters of high ranking government officials talking complex plot points was somewhat about the head of a man who, at the time, was only 20 years of age.

Rainbow Six, then, was something of a revelation. Clearly not as good a book as the others I’ve attempted (all of which I will be more than happy to revisit after this), Six is still hugely enjoyable. The plot is ridiculous (eco terrorists commit terrorist acts in order to obtain a security job at the Sydney Olympics with the plan of releasing the Ebola virus on the unsuspecting crowd) but the moments of the rainbow team doing their thing have a certain boyish charm to them. Big guns, macho men and lots of fighting, it’s like an 80’s action movie with extra technology.

I liked very much.

4/5

The Pelican Brief (John Grisham, 1992)

Much like Michael Crichton, John Grisham is a man who's style comes off as somewhat amateurish yet the stories he tells are never less than exciting. As my first foray into the world of Grisham, The Pelican Brief is a fast, action packed thrill ride that spins a complex but never confusing conspiracy mixed with chase scene aplenty.

Complaints are petty but reasonable: the prose, as stated, is a mixed bag and Grisham's language is limited and repetitive at times (I swear every other page he referred to things as "a/the little [place object/phrase here]") yet it's hard to argue with a narrative as compelling and well thought out as this.

Sometimes, you just want to read something that is simple yet requires some element of brain power. I liked it very much.

4/5