Black Ops

The Rise of Special Forces in the C.I.A., The S.A.S., and Mossad

By: Tony Geraghty

Narrated by: Mirron Willis

Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's Summary

A hard-hitting history of special-forces operations over the past fifty years in the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel.

After eight challenging years in Afghanistan, the new U.S. strategy, aimed at winning hearts and minds rather than search-and-destroy, refocuses the conflict on Special Forces: unorthodox soldiers who work outside of traditional military forces to combine secret military operations with nation building.

Tony Geraghty, an expert author in this field for almost thirty years, unveils the extraordinary evolution of this refined style of war-making from its roots in anti-guerrilla warfare in Ireland and Palestine, by way of the creation of the C.I.A., the S.A.S., the Green Berets, America’s Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.), and many others, including Mossad.

This history is more than a tale of derring-do, although James Bond-like characters stalk every page. It is a sweeping examination of Black Ops at a time when they represent the future of an open-ended global war against terrorism.

©2010 Tony Geraghty (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Painful narration

The narrator lacked any semblance of familiarity with military ranks. He would read the abbreviation for Master Sergeant as M-S-G. Further, he was unfamiliar with the places calling Doha, Qatar D-O-H-A. Being military, this sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. Subject matter was interesting however.

Is this narrator a robot?

Worst narrator ever. The content is interesting, but the narration sounds like a low end robot voice.

Not worth it.

I downloaded this because it was free with Audible’s new subscription program and I’m interested in the topic. I couldn’t get more than 5 minutes through before turning it off. The narrator is horrendous and honestly I thought for a while that it was just a bad computer AI narrating. Siri could have narrated better than this.

Interested in the story, but dislike the reader

Would you consider the audio edition of Black Ops to be better than the print version?

It was an interesting book, but I didn't appreciate the reader's condescending tone!

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

The book could have taken a more center of the road position.

Would you be willing to try another one of Mirron Willis’s performances?

NO!

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

no

Any additional comments?

none

Worst narrator

This narrator with his random breaks in speech and over active tone variation are so off putting its almost comical.
You can not concentrate on anything he says, just his weird high pitched sentence endings where there was no question. His animated and oddly proper pronunciations of random words in the middle of a sentence and his constant pausing where no comma should be made this the worst Audible title ive purchased so far.

Can’t listen to the reader.

Would love to hear this story with a different reader. Very hard to listen to for me, no flow in his reading. Doesn’t use military acronyms and abbreviations properly which lends to my displeasure…for instance says SSG instead of saying Staff Sergeant.

Terrible narrator

I think the content was probably good. Unfortunately the narrator totally ruined it for me. I could only make myself listen two about two chapters then I had to move on. I was never able to focus on what was being read at all.

Great book pretentious narrator

The book is a fascinating look into black ops very comprehensive however the narrator has the most pretentious put on reading style
entirely detracts from the book

Favorite Part was the Epilogue...

First book in my life where th epilogue, the Commentary after it all, the conclusion, was my favorite part. The book was ok...kinda boring and I did struggle to get through a few parts...many actually. . .and the narrator surely wasn't helping, he sounded stiffer than the sheets of paper he was reading off of, but the Epilogue made sense to me so that's what I'm taking from this. Now was it worth this entire book to get me to that point? To listen to one chapter? I can think of quite a few other much better ways to get there.

You Paid The Guy To Narrate This?

If you could sum up Black Ops in three words, what would they be?

Great Historical Information

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Mirron Willis?

Dick Hill (actually almost anyone would have been a better choice)

Any additional comments?

I'm not trying to be disrespectful, it just wasn't a good choice as a narrator. I usually don't write reviews, but when I spend money to listen to a book - I expect that the person hired to narrate the book is going to do a decent job. This book is hard to listen to because the narrator isn't conversational - it's like reading one word at a time, thus the narration provides no sense of engagement. It is very mechanical with has no rhythm. He constantly mispronounces common words that are used within special operations or the military in general.