My Review:: Mortal Allies by Brian Haig

Mortal Allies by Brian Haig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sean Drummond gets played!!!

In the first book of the Sean Drummond series Sean was this big shot, yuppie wiseass. Well he still is a wise ass in this book, but he gets played by almost all sides. The only reason he does not end up as a patsy is coz he ends up bursting the whole case open.

Fun aside, the book deals with the taboo subject of the heterosexual world - Gays in Army. Don't Ask Don't Tell refers to the army's view on Gays in its ranks. But this comes under immense scrutiny when a Army Captain is accused of rape, necrophilia, homosexuality and a bunch of other things when a south Korean Katusa is found dead at his apartment with him next to it.

The fiction OMMG springs into action by appointing a high profile lawyer who incidentally happens to be Drummond's colleague from their law school days... And I say colleagues in the most polite of all ways. Poor Drummond gets recruited as a co-counsel and sparks fly... literally!!!. In his own way, antagonizing everybody around him by airing his opinion - welcome or not, asked or not - Drummond stirs the pot in a way that leaves everybody including his friends and foe alike frustrated and seething at him.

With the inimitable Imelda Pepperfields by his side, Drummond is literally thrown into fire. With the deck stacked against him, the alliance between America and South Korea at risk and of course a client under all sorts of attack, things don't look good for Drummond at all. In his own brash, cocky, antagonizing way Drummond ends up saving everybody's bacon and then some... only to realize that he got played right from the start to get the very same result by the most unlikeliest of all people.

The series is entertaining to say the least. The dialogues between the characters are funny with the right dose of sarcasm and pretty much similar to what real people talk about. It deals with the serious issue of Gays in the army in a way that does not come off as homophobic, almost with respect and that's the point that the author strives to make: Gays are humans they are just wired different than heteros, as long as people keep that simple thing in mind, there should not be any friction at all. The dialog that points out the irrelevance of people being gay, straight or any type you prefer to choose is this "Is this country so rich in patriots that it can afford to turn down any Americans who volunteer to spend a few precious years of their lives in its service?"

Kind-of hits the nail right in the head doesn't it?