Ghost (Paladin of Shadows Book 1) Mass Market Paperback – October 31, 2006

If you care about authenticity, go away. Lots of authentic references and history, but enough other stuff to make it a fun read. I have read TBE series multiple times and will many more. Well done John. Excellent.

Started with the second book of the series that I got from my doctor’s office. I liked it so much that I bought the rest of the series. Easy to read and fun.

This book was written early in the War on Terror era during the G W Bush presidency. I believe that it was designed to be a somewhat tongue in cheek approach to dealing with terror in general and terrorist's in particular. Ringo's approach is to have the Hero Mike aka 'Ghost' seize the cowardly terrorists by the throat and kill them as quickly and quietly as possible. He, the hero, is a newly discharged US Navy SEAL who witnesses a kidnapping. Using the methods learned in service he tracks the bad guys to their final location in the middle east, rescues the terrified kidnap victims and holds off a improbably large number of bad guys until American Military forces arrive to extract all. The book is entertaining with the battle scenes well drawn. Their is an underlying tone of deprativity and sexuality that the Hero must face and deal with not only in his dealing with the cowardly and depraved terrorists but also within himself. There are actually 2 stories in the book: First is dealing with the terrorist kidnappers and the second with spoiling a terrorist plot to introduce nuclear weapons into the US and use them. All in all a good read if you are into escapist lit with little or no socially redeeming messages. This is also the first book in the Paladin of Shadows cycle comprising 5 or 6 books currently. The series is excellent in my opinion and a must read for those who enjoy gritty military style and special operations based fiction mixed with science fiction and pornography. 4 thumbs up.

I have read a lot of Ringo’s books and this has rapidly become one of my favorites. The d/s life style was well written and the characters exceptional. Took less than 24 hours for the first novel, now on to the next one.

I think with John Ringo, you either love him or hate him in some ways, he mentioned some time ago he stopped reading Amazon reviews and just does his stuff and I can see why based on the real variety of reviews.Quite frankly, I love this series, at least the first 4 books and this one starts things off very quickly with lots of action all the way thru the book, the 2 additional stories at the end do have a lot of focus on sex (BDSM play) and violence if you are not open minded about that then you might not like it or the series so I am telling you up front but you could try this book as the first main story is mostly action packedFor me, great book, great character with funny quips and comments and few interesting buddies some of whom will appear in later books to be fully fledged charcaters

Ghost, by John Ringo, reminded me of both the Survivalist series by Jerry Ahern and Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan stories. It is a book that is very much in line with pulp fiction and adventure books, though some of the themes are very mature.Ghost is an interesting story that is generally action based. I have to agree with some of the other reviewers that Ringo definitely takes a politically conservative pedestal in this book. The main character is not politcally correct and he has no desire to be. He frequently lashes out out the "liberal" (substitute here Democratic Party) mindset.There are actually three stories in this book, all dealing with the primary character, a former Navy SEAL named Mike Harmon, and terrorists. There does need to be some suspension of disbelief, but overall the book works. I'll take each story seperately.The first story deals with Mike foiling a terrorist plot. Some of the things he does seem downright impossible, and since it discusses many of his own thoughts we are given the view of a person that feels there is too much liberalization of the United States. He frequently states that he is not a nice person, though the main problem seems to be a matter of sexual inclination. The first story is actually very good if you like action and adventure.The second story primarily deals with Mike's actions after he had become quite wealthy. The emphasis here seems to be on his sexual inclinations, which are strongly BDSM in nature. He is an unrepentant dominant who just so happens to run across a couple of young women who are submissives. Of course he is so very good in bed that he sweeps these girls off of their feet, and of course they have no problem sharing him. By the way, it seems that they didn't know they were submissive before they met him, and guess what, it runs in families. Ringo goes into a certain amount of detail on the BDSM scene, at least from the perspective of Mike.Toward the end of the second story Mike is called into action again. A nuclear warhead is now in the hands of Islamic terrorists in the Caribbean. Again, he manages to pull through, after heroic actions. The story ends with him in a bar running into two submissives.The third story was the hardest to handle. Mike was gallavanting through Russia, and just happens to run upon a tip that leads hime into a terrorist plot to detonate a nuclear warhead in Europe. He follows his instincts, and is able to track down the perpetrators, again intervening in an Islamic plot, and making a wild guess stops the warhead from detonating. Along the way he gives into his darkest desires and in doing so reveals why he is a bad man. At the end of the story he is again on the road looking for more prostitutes.If you tend to like adventure/action books, Ghost will almost satisfy you. If you tend toward the belief that liberals are totally inane, you will probably enjoy this book. If you like James Bond, and you can suspend disbelief for four or five hours, this is a good read. I liked it, but I see it as entertainment. If you like John Norman's Gor novels, and you're willing to take a chance on contemporary fiction, you would probably like it. If you like David Drake and Jerry Pournelle and don't mind a little preachiness, you will likewise like it.On the other hand, if you are a liberal, this book will give you more reasons to dislike John Ringo. It isn't politically correct, it is opinionated, and it is primarily light combat or pulp fiction. I also can't recommend it for anyone under the age of 18 or 19. It tends to be graphic, trending from violence to rough sex. While there is an element of characterization in this, regarding Mike Harmon, it can be a bit much from time to time.I was not sure whether to give it three stars or four, but decided three might be better, though three and a half would have been more accurate. I enjoyed the book, even though I found parts of it uncomfortable. I can say that it is not a book for everyone, and for the most part all the revies reflect that.

A bad good guy takes on terrorists in three sub stories. The book entertains me with the portrayals of the politicians and other folks. The bondage stuff, to me, is a snooze fest and the author I believe tries to hard to live through the main character?A fellow out stalking women sees a woman get kidnapped off the streets. He jumps on the back of the van and soon finds himself embroiled in a terrorist plot to torture young American women to death in a televised bloodbath. Some fun lines in the book and lots of action. A fun book to read.

Great read. Looking forward to reading the next one in the series. Hope there are many more to come. Very highly recommended. Funny, tense, exciting all the way through.

I read this book when it was first released and yes some of the book is .... shall I say weird- the main character is a good and "bad" man and struggles with that "taint" - but I look for entertainment - action - good vs evil and action- it certainly succeeded.- just to repeat -there is some weird stuff in this novel. The Hero struggles with his own personal demons and wins.

The book contains three short stories with characters that go well deeper than what is normally accepted in media, but is all the more realistic for it. The book is about the fight against terrorism and the brutal means that are sometimes needed to do so, but also exposes the dark aspects of society that are commonly ignored by people and media, like the slave trade. No country or culture comes out without criticism, but the author never crosses the line into hate speech as seen all to often. Whether fair or not goes beyond a review, but it is certainly easy to understand how the protagonist reached these believes.The first book is about a rather hideous terror attack that is all the more shocking because it is well outside of what we normally consider terrorism, but would be very effective in terrifying society.The second book reads much like a version of Shades of Grey for men. It shows the protagonist trying to build a new life after he was compromised in the first story and enjoying a normal life, but being drawn back into the thick.The third book is themed much like the second, but now the protagonist has moved to Europe to put more distance between himself and any potential threat against the US that could draw him in again, but circumstances conspire against him.The oh so maligned rape scene in this part needs to be put into perspective; while brutal the prostitute was more than willing to do it again once it was clear that he would pay.Overall a very good read. It's hard to put down the book once you start reading.

Actually a pretty good book, but you have to overlook the author inserting his own political opinion into the book a lot or writing all the characters that matter to have the same political orientation (liberals bad). It honestly got a bit annoying. There is also a lot of America good and everyone else bad going on.

great