Top Secret – Books
The following list of books on this page are what we consider to be some great examples, in one way or another, of various aspects of Top Secret game play and some reference material. They are not listed in any particular order. A brief notation explaining what we like about the book will also be included. Many of the book links will go to Amazon.com for reference.
- Mack Bolan The New War Book #63 – This Book is a representative from the Executioner series of books by Don Pendleton. Some of the group really liked the stories. I wasn’t much for them. Beginning with the 64th book in the series, a section ran in the back of the book called “Weapons In Review”. This section ran on not only the Mack Bolan books but several other spinoff series that were tied to Mack Bolan. We loved to collect these just for the weapons pics. In some cases, these were the only weapon pics that we could get of certain weapons until the internet came along.
- The Call Me The Mercenary #1- The Killer Genesis – This series of books was written by Jerry Ahern under the name Axel Kilgore. This was the series that I fell in love with. Several others in our group liked the series too. As far as I am aware, the series only lasted until book #18. I enjoyed the realism of the stories for a pulp action book and loved the different characters.
- The Day of the Jackal – This book was written by Frederick Forsyth. Great espionage stuff. This book is often cited as an example of how to go about getting a false ID and passport. It is also reported (sometimes erroneously) that various more recent assassins had the book in their possessions as sort of a “how to” manual.
- The Dogs of War – This book was written by Frederick Forsyth. Basis for the movie posted in the Essential Movie section. The book focuses on the intense planning and beginning execution stages of the operation on how to stage a coup in a foreign country. The actual firefight, though intense, actually only takes place in the last two chapters of the book. Forsyth describes a mortar barrage that is very intense and detailed. I recently re-read the book to refresh my memory. Although there are several good quotes from the book, I liked this one probably the best, “Although he (Dupree) had loosed off more firepower than the other four mercenaries put together, he saw no reason why he should be denied all the action”.
- The Lion’s Game – This book was written by Nelson DeMille. Detective John Corey stories. Several members of the group turned me on to this author and this particular book. The characters in the book are very well written and the banter is fantastic!! Great overall story. Looking forward to reading the follow-up story, The Lion, that came out in June 2010. I’ll be moving this author out into a larger area like many of the authors below soon.
- Combat Guns – This book was a main staple of ours as we went about creating weapons in the TS world. Fantastic pictures and descriptions and loads of stats.
Rather than write up a bit on every Dale Brown book (My God the man is a machine in pumping out books! The Stephen King of action!), I thought I’d write a little blurb about the author and point out some of his works that some of us have commented about. Flight of the Old Dog is what introduced us to this author. We loved the realism of the air combat. Other books that we liked from this man include: Silver Tower, Night of the Hawk, Hammerheads, and Storming Heaven. Dale Brown writes so fast that most of us have been unable to read much of his new stuff. However, I plan on trying to catch a few of his newer novels.
Tom Clancy (You just knew this author would be listed!!)
Just like Dale Brown, I’m just going to list several of this author’s books that inspired us. As the reader is most likely aware, several of these books have been turned into movies and some of them are listed in the movie section. We were fortunate to be getting into our role playing at the time that Clancy’s books were becoming super popular as he had just started releasing them. As you might expect, we really liked The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Cardinal of the Kremlin, & Clear and Present Danger. As he published the next several, although they were interesting, our enthusiasm began to wane. Clancy also around this time began expanding and writing with other authors and had other series. As far as I know, none of us ever got into any of those books. Tom Clancy died on 10/1/13.
For some of us, Clive Cussler may be one of our all-time favorite authors. The perfect blend of history and story telling. There have been several attempts to turn Cussler’s books into movies but they never manage to get the right feel to the story compared to the printed word. That and the propensity of certain directors and movie companies that want to distort Clive’s stories for their own ends. Readers from our group tend to like the older stuff better than Clive’s newer stories. We also tend to stick to just the Dirk Pitt adventures. Books we’ve really enjoyed include: Vixen 03, Night Probe!, Cyclops, and Treasure (Fly me to the moon!—sorry Rob). Clive Cussler was also involved in founding the real life agency, National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA). Clive Cussler died on 2/24/20.
The series that we most identified with as far as TS goes was the whole Jason Bourne series. The three original books, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum contained loads of spy information that we could use. Of course all of these have been turned into movies and are listed in the movie section. Robert Ludlum died on 3/12/01.
I don’t know how many of the others in the group have read Vince Flynn’s work but I found this author within the last couple years and I really like him. I had heard about him and had decided to give his books a try. I elected to go back and read his very first book and work forward chronologically on the release dates of his books. I’m very glad I did as I really enjoyed the first book’s (Term Limits) unusual premise and treatment of the characters. The second book, Transfer of Power, introduced the Mitch Rapp character. Vince Flynn died on June 19, 2013 after a battle with cancer. Here is a link to his website where more info is available on the books. [Flash forward to 2021] Vince Flynn’s last book, The Last Man, was published after his death in August of 2013. I got this book not long after it was published. I read every other book that Flynn had done except this one. I had held off on reading it as I knew it was the last Mitch Rapp story by the author himself. Another author has taken over the series and I haven’t read any of those books out of fear of how this new author might treat the world of characters Vince Flynn had created. So here I am in early 2021 finally reading The Last Man. Overall, very good book. Personally, I could tell during the last couple chapters that the book felt really rushed to the conclusion. I am disappointed in that there were a lot of loose threads that pointed to a possible several book arch for the Mitch Rapp character to explore that will now never be done by the original author. (The book published after this one by the new author looks to have explored some of this but I haven’t looked into it seriously to know if I want to read it or not.) It’s been many years since I’ve read the other stories in this series. I can’t honestly say at this point which ones were my favorites and give reviews. The one thing I can say is that I have enjoyed this author’s works overall so much that I waited seven plus years to finish the last book written by his own hand as I have been so very reluctant to close that final chapter as it was. Rest in Peace Mr. Flynn. The literary world and this fan really misses you.
Another example of a writer that I recently found but don’t know who all else in our group has read any of his books. The main character in Brad Taylor’s book is named Pike Logan. Other characters I like in Taylor’s universe are Jennifer Cahill and Shoshana. In the most recent book I’ve read “Daughter of War“, there was a little tidbit, side response to something that was a HUGE deal IF you’ve been following the stories from the very beginning. Really cool little reveal about something. Overall, good stories and plots. There are a few things that bother me about Taylor’s writing is the basis for the Taskforce existence. Another interesting thing about Taylor’s writing is that a very large portion of his stories is devoted to the tracking of a target or targets. Lots of exciting action but not necessarily a lot of gunplay with a lot of weapons. Some, just not as much as others. Still, overall good book series. I haven’t gotten into any of the spin off series he has done.
Brad Thor’s central character is Scot Harvath. In many action writer’s books, the hero eventually (after a lot of books go by) falls for and marries “the love of his life”. Many times, this woman ends up getting killed, thus triggering many books that deal with payback to the ones who did the killing. Well, there is that event in Thor’s writing too. Brad Taylor (above) did the same thing with his very first book and then the subsequent books follow the path of Taylor’s character finding love again. Scot Harvath has worked in many government positions. The first book found him in the Secret Service. I like his books and I believe that he has a little more action in his books than Brad Taylor.
The Gray Man books! Was suggested to read this author by one of group. The first books were good but a little tough for me to get through as Greaney tended to put his main character, Court Gentry (the Gray Man), into situations where it was just almost unbelievable that he could get out of them. However by the time he gets to “Dead Eye“ and “Back Blast”, that trait has pretty much worked itself out of his books and they are just plain flat out entertaining. Greaney’s books tend to be pretty lethal for characters that he introduces.
The Alex Hawke series. As I was getting ready to write this note about this author I was going to comment and say that this character is the new James Bond post Ian Flemming writing. As I linked to Bell’s home page, lo and behold, those were also many of the comments from other authors about his books. Different writing style than the other authors I’m current reading. Seems to have a flair for descriptive setting of a scene. Definitely a flavor of old England. Good stuff, although occasionally, Bell tends to reach a little too far with some almost unbelievable characters; mainly villains. One thing I’ve liked with his books is that he introduces some weapons I have not heard about previously and this encourages me to do some investigating.
The Dewey Andreas series. This author was suggested to me by a member of our group who said his Father who liked reading this author. I am currently working through this authors books and as of this writing am on book 7 of this series. My impression so far is I like him but not as much as either of the two “Brad’s” listed above. Several things I’ve observed about Coes’ writing style. His main character has the usual love of life and family that is killed in some fashion with the addition of another love of life that is killed (which was particularly frustrating as I really liked that character). The main character (as done in many of the stores above), Dewey Andreas, goes on a period of vengeance and/or self-seeking self-perspective after each of these occurrences. Coes does NOT shy away from huge body counts in his stories and lots of destruction. I have found he introduces a lot of different weapons in his stories, which I like as I get to investigate them and sometimes incorporate them into game play by designing them. However, the early books disappointed me a little as it was clear that he did not seem to know the weapons as he made mistakes with some like the caliber of a known weapon being incorrect or some other similar incongruity. This seems to have cleared up as I have read further into his series. One oddity in Coes’ books is that so many things are going on at once that secondary characters get to shine as Dewey can’t be everywhere at once. Another thing I have noted in Coes’ style is that there frequently seems to be a lot of detail on when Dewey gets shot at some point. Then the extensive description of him obtaining materials to address the bullet and sew back up the wound to help get him through. It also seems Dewey has some remarkable healing powers between books. This author also tends to be pretty lethal on new characters that get introduced. Interestingly, though, that sometimes these “minor” characters get a lot of description and some background before he kills them off whether it is in a few chapters or even just within several pages.
The Logan West series author. What is it with the name Logan? Second main action hero character with this name on this list. Except now it is the first name. I’ve begun reading these works. Fortunately, as of this note (1/20/23), only five books with one on the way later in 2023. I’ll update more in a little while.
The author of the James Reece books. This series was turned into a show on Amazon PRIME™ called “The Terminal List”. I’ve read several of these books. Will post more on them as I read more.