Book #12 - The First Commandment by Brad Thor

I have to honestly admit the first book I read by Brad Thor I picked up off the shelf because of the cover. I do that quite often (make note publishers that the cover art does matter), and about half the time, the result is great and the other half of the time a flop. Brad Thor is a great adventure writer who has cornered the market on the Secret Service/Covert Ops books. Throughout this book, I found myself thinking, who would I have play Harvath in the movie. Still haven't come up with anyone. Must be beautiful like Tom Cruise but would have to be far tougher. It must be played by someone who can go crazy on the bad guy like Mel Gibson in "The Patriot." This book was great on many levels. Great adventure, high paced, great subplots, etc. However, what got me was how close it hit to what we are seeing in the news. All of the talk about Gitmo and terrorism were right out of the evening news. What was disturbing was the description and detail of how torture works. There were many occasions that my stomach rolled right up into my throat. If excerpts of this book were read of this book about the torture that happened at Gitmo, the citizens of our country would be furious and appalled by the fact that our government opened the prison and maintained it unlawfully for so many years. On a lighter note, for those avid readers as myself, I would be interested to know if you catch the reference he makes to Steve Berry's Cotton Malone.