Currently off the Shelf...

After Relentless Strike, which covered the history of Joint Special Operations Command, and Killer Elite, which focused on "The Activity" (JSOC's in-house intel/clandestine unit), it seemed natural to continue the theme with Surprise, Kill, Vanish.

Published just last year, Surprise, Kill, Vanish is a history of the CIA's paramilitary and direct action work that starts off back at its WWII roots and specifically traces the use of...er, "preemptive self defense against individual threats to America's national security" up through very recent history in Afghanistan.

There are a couple of typos/editing goofs that have the "ACKSHYUALLY" crowd in the Amazon reviews triggered (President Kennedy, a Navy Lieutenant, is at one point referred to as a former "Lieutenant Colonel") and claiming that therefore the rest of the book must be fiction, but people well read on the Phoenix Program or Billy Waugh's autobiography Hunting the Jackal, will find little shocking in this book.

It's well-written and a broad narrative that ties together stories usually read in more detailed chunks. Recommend.
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