Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Do Patrick Robinson a favor and get this book from your library, or if you must own it, wait for the paperback. If his royalties fall off, perhaps he will submit to better editing.
Robinson's characters are more properly caricatures. None of that bothered me much in his earlier works, although I always thought his national villains (especially the Chinese, who figure as modern-day Fu Manchus in this offering - more so than before) were rather one dimensional. I don't annoy easily, but this one did annoy me for a couple of reasons.
First, early in the story (p. 11) and just before slamming the incumbent president (whose "shocking self-interest and lack of judgment" were the subject of an earlier work) he refers to the "vastly experienced Senator Ted Kennedy, whose unwavering patriotism and endless concern for his country make him always a natural leader among men." Now Senator Kennedy probably is all of those things, although I've never thought of him as a Defense wonk, but the line had nothing to do with the story - particularly with the use of the verb "make" as opposed to "made" - when everyone else in the scenario was referred to in the past tense.
All I can figure is that Robinson met the senator at a cocktail party on Cape Cod (one of the author's homes according to his bio) and promised to mention him in his next book.
Second, the great court-martial scene was just plain impossible. Robinson's acknowledgments state that he relied upon legal sources in the US Navy who didn't wish to be named. I can understand why they didn't wish identification, since the description of the trial is something out of a bad 19th century novel, and the procedures from beginnig to end violate just about every article of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Note to Robinson: 1) just because someone presses charges, doesn't mean there will be a trial, that's up to the court-martial convening authority and he can say no, 2) you forgot to include the Military Judge in the trial - someone would have noticed, 3) the president of the court has dammed little authority, and he NEVER makes rulings on evidence or announces the verdict, much less editorializes (the judge handles that, and he doesn't editorialize either), 4) a court-martial never includes someone of lesser rank than the accused, so the lieutenant would't be there, and if he were, the trial would be busted on appeal, 5) ballots are secret, 6) it takes a 2/3rds vote to convict; you only had three out of five votes and needed four, 7) the court doesn't recommend a sentence, it determines one, and both the verdict and the sentence are reviewed by the convening authority and at least one appellate court in a case involving the dismissal of an officer. And 8 (just to be really nit-picky) there is only one "Judge Advocate General" in the entire Navy; he's a 2-star admiral. Every other member of the uniformed Naval legal establishment is called a "judge advocate."
Yes, we all know about literary license, but this was clueless, not to mentioned contrived.
The action scenes were good, but read it at your own risk if you're looking for plausibility. and yes, I'm donating my copy (hardcover, I regret to say) to my local library.
A JAG 0-6
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