Deep State (Jason Trapp #1) 3Stars

 

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Title: Deep State
Series: Jason Trapp #1
Author: Jack Slater
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 391
Words: 124K

I started this book and something just seemed “off” to me. Nothing huge, nothing glaring, but something just wasn’t right. So I started highlighting and taking notes whenever something struck me. I finally twigged to what the root cause was when I saw the following sentence:
“As Perkins and Winks manhandled the prisoner inside, Trapp gently grabbed Dani’s arm. She was dressed in black jeans, a warm JUMPER and an FBI windbreaker.”
~Chapter 40

That explained everything, and I mean everything. For those who don’t understand, I shall explain. The English Language is not a monolithic entity. It is broken up into two main spheres of Influence, The King’s English (booo, hiss, fart noises) and American English (patriotic singing, manly muscles, rah rah rah). In American English, which this book should have been written in as it is dealing with the American Government and a member of a black ops CIA team, a jumper is someone who is about to or has already, committed suicide by jumping from a high place, usually a building. It would be quite UNUSUAL for someone to wear a dead body as part of their clothing outfit, even if they are an FBI agent. However, in the King’s English, a jumper is a warm, long sleeved garment that is between a shirt and a coat. In American English, we call that garment a “sweater”. So this author, which I shall get to next, is some bloody foreigner acting like he knows what the feth he’s talking about when it comes to action and adventure and American Patriotism.

And he gets it wrong. Completely wrong. Jason Trapp is supposed to be this super patriot, a Mitch Rapp as it were. He views himself as a sheepdog for the sheep of the American Public. The problem is, he despises the sheep for how they act, thinks he’s innately better than them and doesn’t come across as serving them at all. He comes across as a macho blowhard with an attitude. Big Government is here to help and damn any of you peons who thinks to get above himself by actually trying to better himself. Eat dirt slave. THAT is the vibe I get here.

After that blinding revelation that this wasn’t written by American (rah, rah, rah!), I tried to find out some info about the author. I usually regret doing that, but there are times when my personal enjoyment doesn’t matter and I need to know the truth. There are several Jack Slater’s. One of them is this author. Another appears to be some Brit who writes police procedural novels. But the biggest hit on google is for this Jack Slater:

Maybe this author’s name really is Jack Slater and it is not a pseudonym. I can’t say. But his website has even less info about him than my About page has about me and the “photo” just screams anonymity. My skeptometer is running above the 100% mark concerning this guy.

There is also the very typical European outlook on individuals owning guns and using them as they should. The lady FBI character spouts off a thought about how “the good man with a gun” is just a myth and that situations are never solved by such a mythological being. The problem is, for the author, that’s a lie. Not misinformation, but a damned lie. The reason the public doesn’t hear about the many instance of “the good man with a gun” is because it doesn’t fit the mass media’s narrative here in the United States and thus they never run with the stories. But you can find those stories in the local papers, etc. Lest you think I am simply making up crap (like the author did), this is a documented phenomena that Larry Correia writes about in his book, In Defense of the Second Amendment. Full set of footnotes in the rear of the book.

I have now written over 600 words condemning this book. Most of my reviews are half that length, even including the synopsis (remember, short stocking bald men are the most attractive and the same goes for reviews), so I can understand if you are totally confused about why I still rated this 3stars. Two words

The Fething Action. (fething isn’t a real word so it doesn’t count, ha!)

Jason Trapp takes on terrorists with an aluminum baseball bat. He is attacked by a fighter jet with a big ol’ bunker buster missile and survives. He takes on a whole squad of Israeli mercenaries who are the best of the best (but not good enough). And he poisons the Vice-president of American with a Batman level poison pen. IT. WAS. AWESOME. In a previous review I joked about parachuting in and killing you with a nuclear bazooka. Well, Jason Trapp would have actually done it.

All of that being said, the next book will make or break Jason Trapp for me. If I get even a whiff of anti-gun propaganda, I will dnf the series like Mitch Rapp putting a bullet in a terrorist’s skull. No fear, no hesitation.

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher:

If you come after the CIA’s most feared assassin, there’s one cardinal rule: Don’t miss.
America is under attack. Thousands lie dead after simultaneous strikes across the country. The day will come to be known as Bloody Monday.
Jason Trapp, codename ‘Hangman’, was a covert operative whose feats became the stuff of legend. He was the tip of the spear—the man his country unleashed when all hope was lost.
Six months ago, someone sold him out. The Agency listed him as killed in action. He lost everything—and everyone—he held dear.
But Trapp’s not that easy to kill. As his country reels from the deadliest terrorist attacks it has ever witnessed, Trapp’s personal vendetta leads him right back to where he started: duty to his country. The violence, the terror, the assassination of his partner… It’s all connected.
And now the Hangman is coming for the guilty.