Review: Reap the Whirlwind

Reap the Whirlwind Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Douglas De Bono
Class/Genre: Mystery Espionage
ISBN 0-9707093-3-1
Pub date, August, 2000
McGraw Publishing., Inc.
418 pages, Trade Paper $12.95
Hardcover, $24.95
Available in downloadable electronic formats for considerably less
from
www.pointofhonor.com, and from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders on
the Internet.

When the Soviet Empire collapsed, many wondered where thriller and espionage writers would find material for their twenty first century novels. Well, we now know. The new evil monolith is China, the thriller of the month. In the past year there has been a virtual flood of internationally flavored, techno-cratic, usually violent, novels further burdened with dire warnings and heavy messages. Minnesota writers are not immune to this unfortunate trend.

REAP THE WHIRLWIND is a massive, dense book with a cast of, if not thousands, scores. The complications multiply as one plows doggedly on in this book until even a careful reader needs to make notes in order to follow the many themes and characters. We have the venal politicians inside the beltway, none of whom appear to have any redeeming virtues. If they aren’t weak and vacillating, they have hatched vast conspiracies aimed solely at reaping many personal millions of dollars. Elected officials in the administration are totally focused on the coming election--remember this book was written largely during the time just preceding the last national election--to the detriment of careful attention to international affairs and policy.

From the West Wing of the White House, the National Security Advisor is running a drug ring in Panama. Since the hand-over of the Canal to Panama, the Chinese have been moving in, consolidating control in the Canal region and appear to be up to no good. Even Fidel Castro is worried because the Russians and others are cutting into his drug profits. A “renowned” Chinese spymaster, once deported, has returned with plans to wreak massive damage. The FBI, mostly portrayed as futile, bumbling idiots, have no hope of protecting the United States. There is much more. Even the military receives the back of this author’s hand, with one or two exceptions. The exceptions are heroic, mythic, warriors. Civilians outside of government shouldn’t be complacent. The general attitude espoused by several characters in this book toward the population at large, is that we civilians couldn’t understand the dangers if they were explained to us.

There are strong elements of a good old fashioned modern thriller here. In fact, there are two good novels here. Minnetonka author De Bono has taken all the elements of the International Spy Thriller and added a dollop of action here and there and brought things forward into the cyber era of this century.

But like many current books of this ilk, REAP THE WHIRLWIND suffers from some common ills. The book desperately needs content and copy editing. There are too many grammatical errors. One of the problems with many computer spell-check and thesaurus programs is they don’t appear to have been written by writer or editors with strong language backgrounds. No one has yet created a computer program which can handle all the subtleties and nuances of the English language. Into becomes in to; throughout becomes through out. These errors throw the reader out of the story and make the novel more difficult than it needs to be. The writing, with the exception of some of the fighting sequences, is unfortunately pedestrian and often relies on italicizing key words to inject emotion and emphasis. Irregular capitalization adds another layer of difficulty.

This is a novel that will appeal to anyone who likes to know everything about the modern weaponry of war; it will appeal to anyone who believes the return of Panama Canal to the Panamanians was a great mistake, and it will appeal to some who are sure all government workers are crooked. It will also appeal to some who believe that September 11, 2001, was a see, I told you so" event. For anyone else, REAP THE WHIRL WIND IS tough going. It’s a shame, because tucked inside and wrapped around the message are a couple of good stories.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Carl Brookins - RAM

Book Review: Reap the Whirlwind