Review: Red Metal

Red Metal by Mark Greaney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely epic!

I bought this book simply out of respect for Mark Greaney, I'm a big fan of his Gray Man series and assumed this would be a well written but sub-par side project. It's almost double the size of a Gray novel and being "an account of World War 3" I assumed a long overly military tactic focused story. Holy sh#t was I wrong! The array of simultaneous mini-stories was so immersive I was having dreams about the battles and tactics almost every night haha.

Red Metal is a shockingly realistic account of what World War III would look like. It begins with the controversial control of a new rare earth metals deposit found in Kenya. Russia feels it's rightfully theirs and after being forced out, return 3 years later with a multi-continent plan of attack, counters and feints with hopes to recapture the mine. Where Red Metal really shines is the variety of combat, long range rifles in the snowy mountains, submarine vs submarine, air-to-air, ground-to-air etc. It was fantastic, every battle had its heroes and just enough backstory to feel emotionally involved. I've read every Gray Man, Rapp, Pike, Andreas, Harvath, Raynor, all the ass kickers and Red Metal is truly one of the best action novels I've ever read. I'll certainly continue to read Mark Greaney's Gray Man series but seriously hope he has another side project cooking up. My first 5-star review in over a year.

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