I have to say the action scenes in the sky make this story a 3 star.

Unfortunately a lot of the story is very repetitive and feels like the author is padding the story out.

If you can ignore the padding it is well worth a read.

Having completed an ARC of Ed Benjamin's book entitled "Redemption," I must confess my disappointment. The book, while generally well written, lacks the character development and consistency in its narrative structure that I might prefer. The story revolves around a military aviator who is grounded after a rather traumatic encounter with Iranian jets leaves him judged unfit for flight duty (over his strong objections). This all occurs quite early in the narrative and then the bulk of the text focuses on his struggle to return to flight duty and meanwhile make the best of his apparently highly developed analytical skills rooted in situation awareness in military law enforcement. I won't give the end away, but after wandering in the "desert" of desk jobs, our protagonist eventually manages to come full circle. Combat scenes, while few and far between (my principal disappointment), are well done if occasionally manifesting somewhat more luck than seems even remotely probable.