by Nik-Uhernik (Nicholas Cain)
1984, General Paperbacks/Panda
Set in the early 60s, the War Dogs are a team of brutal soldiers recruited Dirty Dozen style: a soldier of fortune, a soldier who beat his CO to death, a cop who beat a mentally ill prisoner to death for mouthing off, a drug smuggling pilot, and the only sympathetic figure, a sex worker turned vigilante. They're recruited Nick Fury style and trained in an underground bunker before being used in assassination missions around the globe.
The book breezes by the 450 pages and is strongest in the origin stories of the various members. It later struggles as a lot of team books do - the lieutenant who recruits goes from being a shadowy figure to the main character, with the rest of the team pulling back as support. The sex worker gets the most characterization, or she might just stand out as the others are distinguished by various levels of dirtbaggery.
The story oddly insisted on moral certainty while carrying the theme of moral ambiguity. The concept of the team was that American needed a dirty team to carry out dirty jobs, and that the War Dogs should kill without question. Then the team are shown ironclad evidence that what they're doing was right, kind of undercutting the theme.
After slaughtering a seemingly innocent South American village, the team are shown film of their victims' horrid crimes, presumably taken with hidden 16mm cameras all over town. And when the Lt. struggles with the morality of a decision, he happens across a detailed diary which answers all of his questions.
I had some issues with the realism in places. The lieutenant swoops in, sometimes minutes after a recruit is caught by the police - even with an intelligence network that broad there's still travel time. And the War Dogs MO involves hovering a helicopter over the target's building, letting the crew jump off onto the roof or balcony, without anyone hearing it. Started off strong, but some of the convolutions turned me off by the end.
