Operation Relentless

‘Operation Relentless' is the tough, no holds barred account of a DEA sting. Its purpose: to bring down the man dubbed ‘the Merchant Of Death'.

In 2008 the world's foremost terrorist arms-dealer was sentenced in a US court to 25 years without parole. For decades Russian billionaire, former KGB officer, Victor Bout was the world's most wanted criminal. Bout was trading arms for gems, missiles and drugs, fuelling global narco-terrorism. Shielded by the Kremlin, Bout seemed immune to capture. The NSC, CIA, NSA, MI6 and SAS had all failed to bring the Russian to justice.Mike Braun, chief of the DEA's elite Special Operations Division figured the Agency (fresh out of a string of highly successful sting operations) could ‘use a thief to catch a thief'. Indeed, they funded their operations from money and assets seized from the bad guys.Braun turned to veteran DEA Agent and former US Marine, Wim Brown and former actor and DEA Supervising Agent, Lou Milione. Together they put together the script, the plot and the cast for the Agency's most notorious, costly and risk-laden operation. Codename: RELENTLESS, its success would rely upon a former drugs-trafficker turned undercover supremo Carlos Sagastume, AKA the ‘King of Sting'. Carlos would be joined by former arms-dealer to terrorists, Ricardo Jardeno. And finally they recruited former SAS man and sanctions-busting bush pilot, Mike Snow, known to all as ‘The Bear'.It was while operating his own small airline in South Africa that Snow had got to know Viktor. A chance remark at a social evening with one of Snow's old friends led the DEA to contact him and to persuade him to work with them to capture Bout.Damien not only tells this story by weaves in the background stories. These help to flesh out our protagonists and villains. For example:- Mike survives an airport "attack" in Uganda when a refugee woman decides to cook food on top of an artillery shell casing, making it detonate.- Victor takes videos of everywhere he goes and gives an interview to the Time magazine.- The Taliban forces a Russian plane to land in Afghanistan. The crew, after 370 days of captivity, manages plan an escape.

Written with authenticity and attention to detail this reads like a novel. The characters are well rounded and the action is well told. It treads a fine line between being a dull recounting of dry facts and a swashbuckling account. Here Lewis' pulls off the difficult balance. He has produced a book which is not only very readable but also contains key facts. It's all presented in a way which holds the reader's attention and is a decent enough good read.

So why only 3 stars? Because it's about 25% too long. I'm sure certain details and conversations could have been skipped. And by doing this it would have made it even more readable.