November 7, 2016
Retired Marine Henderson (Marine Sniper: 93 Confirmed Kills) makes his fiction debut with a swaggering, testosterone-fueled military action novel. U.S. Gunnery Sgt. Jack Valentine returns to Iraq to finish the mission he failed at years before: killing ISIS founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Cesare Alosi, a greedy military contractor, and his motley collection of disgraced mercenaries play all sides and endanger Jack’s mission and the lives of Jack’s men, while FBI special agent Melita Alicia “Liberty” Cruz, Jack’s supposed lifelong love, investigates Alosi. The dialogue—salty, irreverent, demeaning, profane—rings true of men at war. Even Henderson’s omniscient narrator sounds like a jarhead. This isn’t the tale of a stalwart hero saving the world for democracy; this is good guys turning bad guys into giblets. Full of anecdotes, asides, history, and proselytizing, the story meanders after the climactic battle scene, concluding with a biographical chapter that feels tacked on, as if Henderson were loath to leave anything out.