Black Ops

The Rise of Special Forces in the C.I.A., The S.A.S., and Mossad

By: Tony Geraghty

Narrated by: Mirron Willis

A hard-hitting history of special-forces operations over the past fifty years in the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel.

After eight challenging years in Afghanistan, the new U.S. strategy, aimed at winning hearts and minds rather than search-and-destroy, refocuses the conflict on Special Forces: unorthodox soldiers who work outside of traditional military forces to combine secret military operations with nation building.

Tony Geraghty, an expert author in this field for almost thirty years, unveils the extraordinary evolution of this refined style of war-making from its roots in anti-guerrilla warfare in Ireland and Palestine, by way of the creation of the C.I.A., the S.A.S., the Green Berets, America’s Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.), and many others, including Mossad.

This history is more than a tale of derring-do, although James Bond-like characters stalk every page. It is a sweeping examination of Black Ops at a time when they represent the future of an open-ended global war against terrorism.

©2010 Tony Geraghty (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Informative

The book had a lot of information. Had to get past the narrators voice.

Narration is unbearable

I’m sure this is probably a great book but I couldn’t get past the first 60 seconds because the narration is so unbearable.

Is this narrator a robot?

Worst narrator ever. The content is interesting, but the narration sounds like a low end robot voice.

You Paid The Guy To Narrate This?

If you could sum up Black Ops in three words, what would they be?

Great Historical Information

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Mirron Willis?

Dick Hill (actually almost anyone would have been a better choice)

Any additional comments?

I'm not trying to be disrespectful, it just wasn't a good choice as a narrator. I usually don't write reviews, but when I spend money to listen to a book - I expect that the person hired to narrate the book is going to do a decent job. This book is hard to listen to because the narrator isn't conversational - it's like reading one word at a time, thus the narration provides no sense of engagement. It is very mechanical with has no rhythm. He constantly mispronounces common words that are used within special operations or the military in general.

Really awesome stuff

This is a really interesting book that I think is very informative and intriguing. Highly recommended!

Painful narration

The narrator lacked any semblance of familiarity with military ranks. He would read the abbreviation for Master Sergeant as M-S-G. Further, he was unfamiliar with the places calling Doha, Qatar D-O-H-A. Being military, this sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. Subject matter was interesting however.

Distracting Narrator

The book itself was really informative and interesting, but the way the narrator dictates everything in this random staccato ruin any chance of immersion into the story.

Meh

Uninspiring reading by a narrator who either wasn’t very well educated or who did zero background research!
Countless errors, with an absolute classic occurring when referring to Pablo Escobar’s infamous cartel as the Medallion cartel!! Admittedly the spelling may be similar but…….. please 🤦‍♂️

Favorite Part was the Epilogue...

First book in my life where th epilogue, the Commentary after it all, the conclusion, was my favorite part. The book was ok...kinda boring and I did struggle to get through a few parts...many actually. . .and the narrator surely wasn't helping, he sounded stiffer than the sheets of paper he was reading off of, but the Epilogue made sense to me so that's what I'm taking from this. Now was it worth this entire book to get me to that point? To listen to one chapter? I can think of quite a few other much better ways to get there.

Could have had less Obama worship

The author wrote this before Obama created ISIS. But his over the top praise of Obama was embarrassing.