Reality based novel, action packed, all the way thru! This is the 1st Bing West book I've read, but will definitely look for more from him. He has a lot of actual real history in what he writes about, so when reading this novel...it reads scarily true. He used a lot of the military lingo, acronyms, & abbreviations...but it worked together to compliment the feel/read of the book. Also gives an insight into the political aspect, & the technology used in the military & world today. I liked that at the end he explained how the 'chain of command' works in reality.
I received this e-book from Bombardier Books via NetGalley, & offer this, my own fair & honest review.

A mesmerizing and true to life story of war written by a warrior with a full set of his own combat experience credentials to attest to the reality of that which he writes. The zone is Afghanistan where U.S. troops are bogged down in a war against an adversary that has been at war for centuries. Western civilization first came into conflict with Afghans when England was ensconced in India and protecting the border. Next came the Russians who became mired in a morass of a nation of guerrilla fighters making mincemeat of a modern army. Now it is the Americans that are stalemated in the country and as of this writing it appears that U.S. president Trump is in the process of possibly getting the U.S. out of that area.
The novel depicts a combined force of U.S. Marines and CIA personnel policing what has been determined is a Poppy field and a major source of pot harvested for sale into the United States. It is fighting men pitted against Drug Lords and Taliban. It becomes immediately very clear that the Americans don't feel that they should be there and only the CIA personnel that seem to have a good reason to risk their lives.
The author does an excellent job in describing the coming to grips by the Marines of the need to do the job. Those that have combat experience and those that do not fall back on their training and respond as needed with no thought of the correct response needed in the situation. Some of the personnel rise to meet the challenges of the action taking on both the responsibility for themselves and others who await guidance. There is the overall commander that is not competent to exercise this command and the president of the United States who cares only about the public opinion stemming from the battle. The colonel in overall charge of the platoon is constantly thinking of what his supervisors will think of him and weighs each decision based not on combat conditions present but what others will make of it.
The novel is in no way an anti-war book due to its treating the combat as necessary, but one that provides a firsthand insight of men at war and how they react to the life and death situations called for. The realization arises that most of the men involved are really just boys who are also personally involved with thoughts of possible families and other courses of action they face after discharge from military service.

It has been a long time since I read a book that really (and I mean really) kept me tense and almost jumping ahead to the next chapter to to find out what I happened (I didn’t) this is a book reminiscent of Forsyth or Clancy at their best, I have not read any other books the author has written but i will be correcting that error very soon