The field of adventure and military fiction is pretty clogged these days. Lots of armchair warriors or those with dubious “snake eating” creds fill the physical and virtual bookshelves of popular fiction. There are a handful of bonafide fighters turned novelists out there and Dalton Fury is one of them.
Fury, a pen name, is a former officer in the elite “Delta Force” and authored an early non-fiction take on the efforts to find and kill Osama Bin Laden. After that book Fury branched out and created a fictional, battered and outsider Delta operator in Kolt Raynor. Raynor appeared in Black Site, Fury’s inaugural action fiction tale that was fast paced and enjoyable. Fury follows-up Black Site with a new Raynor adventure, Tier One Wild.
Raynor, once an outcast from the special operations mainstream, has now been re-qualified and is welcomed back to the world of Delta in an adventure story that hopscotches around the globe hitting every conceivable hotspot. The story opens with audacious action as Raynor and his small team of shooters literally descend from the night sky to assault a hijacked jetliner. Thing is, Fury doesn’t make it a simple land, creep and linear assault. Nope, the adventure quotient immediately amps up as the jet starts to take off and the Raynor team lands ON the accelerating aircraft. What follows is a quick, brutal action of close quarters battle.
From there, Tier One Wild bounces from India, to the United States, Libya, Egypt and Yemen. Surface to air missiles are on the loose and Raynor’s team needs to stay one step ahead of the terrorist band, led by an American ex-pat turned radical. Ultimately, the trail takes bullet spewing twists and turns to a conclusion where Raynor must take action by his own hand.
The technical details, gear and guns are punctuation to a kinetic story. The “bad guy” Abu al-Amriki appears as a mad, calculating master mind in Black Site and his story arc effectively propels forward into Tier One Wild without getting bogged down in typical xenophobic characterizations.
As military thrillers go, Tier One Wild has a clear story, clear characters and smooth, rapid pacing. If you’re a fan of the genre, you’ve probably already picked up Fury’s work. If on the fence about military adventure fiction, this book is a good entree to the crowded field.
Tier One Wild by Dalton Fury was purchased for review by the Boston Book Bums
B3…thanks a million for the awesome review of TIER ONE WILD. It’s very much appreciated.