I bought one of Griffin’s latest books, “The Shooters,” at the airport in Denver – I needed something for the long flight to Hawaii (yes, I am on mission to slip “I went to Hawaii” into as many threads as possible) and that book was one of the thickest on the shelf. I remembered reading one of his first series, “Brotherhood of War” and really enjoyed all of the books. Several of my Army buddies and officers I’d served under recommended it because I found the development of Army aviation (outside of the creation of the Air Force) fascinating. As I remember them, those first books were very well written. Griffin did (I thought) a fairly good job of establishing separate voices for the main characters, and the writing was spare and clean.
“The Shooters”, on the other hand, was bloated and sloppy. All of the characters spoke with the same voice, all had identical self-deprecating, grandly over- or under-stated humor (which got very old on about the third page) and the characters were poorly developed. Griffin used long, tiring monologues to explain the background of major characters, which is the mark of an inexperienced writer, and the few characters that were at least nominally sketched in did things completely out of character, like flipping each other off.
Was Griffin always this bad and I just didn’t realize it 25 years ago, or has he just stopped trying?
I think it’s just that series. His other series aren’t falling apart that badly. “Brotherhood” is still the best, but “The Corps” is right up there, and his other WW2 series aren’t half bad either.
I don’t know how he possibly could jump the shark. He has a formula. The formula works. He will never deviate from the formula. I enjoy the books but I have no illusions about what they are. On the other hand, I have not read his most recent series and I get the impression that his son is taking over more of the writing duties. The guy is 80 years old and has written over 100 books.
I had a friend who was on me to read his books. I wasn’t really interested. I’ve been stuck on a long business trip (not in Hawaii) and there are a handful of books available that other hotel guests had left behind. Read the David Sedaris book (not great) and then went for “By Order of the President”. According to Griffin’s website it’s his latest book. The main character is a rich, handsome German/“Texican” orphan of high caste birth, a lady’s man that’s considering settling down, but quickly rising up the ranks in both the Army, Homeland Security and the Secret Service all at the same time. Oh, that and he has his own (family) Learjet, can fly helicopters and large fixed wing transports, is Delta Force and has a winning, self-deprecating sense of humor.
So yeah, unless the shark had already been jumped, I’m guessing that it has now. The book was kind of the “guy” equivalent of a romance novel. It was something to pass the time, though.
All his heroes are rich, handsome and heroic. He often throws in some aviation in there because of his interests. They are not people you meet everyday. The one exception is the main character in the Corps series. He is poor. But his girlfriend is incredibly wealthy as is his best friend, the Marine Aviator. But in his favor the plots of his books often revolve around historical events that are not widely written about, the army between WWII and Korea, the OSS, the start of Army Aviation, the start of Special Forces, Austrailian Coast Watchers, Argentina in the 40s. The books are popcorn. I like popcorn. I usually finish each book in a day.
I’d never thought of the books that way, but you’re exactly right.
Perhaps he’s jumped the shark, or at least his formula has gotten a bit overplayed. Part of the problem is that he’s already mined his pet areas and themes several times, so his recycling has become obvious. For intstance, in the Brotherhood of War, he had his covert mid-level army officer who went on troubleshooting intelligence missions at the direct behest of the President (Felter), and now the Presidential Agent series is all about a similar army officer on the same types of missions (Charlie Castillo), though set in the present time, rather than in the 50s and 60s.
Similarly, almost all of his central characters have similar wealthy/aristocratic/well-connected backgrounds (or failing that, well-recognized heroism) that allow them to use their personal connections to avoid problems in an almost deus ex machina way. However, the extent to which these background were important has gone from occasional to central to the stories. Though “Duke” Lowell of the Brotherhood series owned half an investment bank, it was relatively rare that he had to pull that out of his pocket, and indeed for much of the series he was trying or forced to operate while that was concealed or irrelevant. On the other hand, wealth and access to family assets are entirely central to the Presidential Agent series’s Charlie Castillo and Honor Bound’s Cletus Frade’s ability to do what they do.
Likewise, his earlier books brought us to somewhat obscure historical periods/locations/developments (early army aviation, the congo, intelligence in the WWII Pacific Theater, South America in WWII, etc.), allowing them to be a romatic backdrop for his larger than life characters. However the Presidential Agents series, and his other current writings to a lesser extent, fall into more prosaic areas (like the present) where the characters seem slightly out of place. Further, he has now tended to set different series in the same geographic/historical/institutional context (e.g. WWII OSS) so they are less interesting the second (or third) time around.
So, I would say that his problem is that his formula has become a little shopworn from use, reuse and overuse (though he’s a lot better than Clancy, who hasn’t merely jumped the shark, but been eaten by the damn thing).