The Red Line

By: Walt Gragg

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

"Delta-Two, I've got tanks through the wire! They're everywhere!"

World War III explodes in seconds when a resurgent Russian federation launches a deadly armored thrust into the heart of Germany. With a powerful blizzard providing cover, Russian tanks thunder down the autobahns while specially trained Spetsnaz teams strike at vulnerable command points.

Standing against them are the woefully undermanned American forces. What they lack in numbers, they make up for in superior weapons and training. But before the sun rises, they are on the run across a smoking battlefield crowded with corpses.

Any slim hope for victory rests with one unlikely hero. Army Staff Sergeant George O'Neill, a communications specialist, may be able to reestablish links that have been severed by hostile forces, but that will take time. While he works, it's up to hundreds of individual American soldiers to hold back the enemy flood.

There's one thing that's certain: The thin line between victory and defeat is also the red line between life and death.

©2017 Walt Gragg (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Quick paced

Quick paced yes, but needed a bit more flesh on the bones of the story. Actually I believe it should be 3 1/2 stars. But not up to the skill of a John Ringo or David Weber.

OK Book

This was a OK book. But the writer got some wrong. 1, their 5 tanks to a armor platoon when I was armor battalion. 2, When the Russian started using prison gas and nuke on us. we would wait before start retaliating with our nukes on the Russian.
But it was still OK book.

Too unrealistic

This is no Clancy Book. Not even close to it. Would have been an awesome book with a little research and better knowledge of the military and tactics. M4 “clips”...ugh.

A Russian (actually 2) paratroop regiments attacking airbases, when a simple cruise missile attack would have done the job. Too many inconsistencies made it hard to follow.

Good but not great - some spoilers ahead

I enjoy WW3 stories and their sometimes complex what if scenarios. The Red Line is no different but takes some giant leaps of 'what if' in order to make it to WW3.

The good:
Value for your credit - 17 1/2 hours of story.
Despite it's many small flaws, the overall story is entertaining.

The bad:
I do not have a problem with far out scenarios but this story fails to properly build up to these. Very little time is given to, for example, make the current Germany fall back into a Nazi state or why the United States fails to retaliate after a tactical nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. To me these are not deal breakers but they did make me scratch my head and think how unrealistic the story was getting at this point.

My other main issue was the over dramatization in certain parts of the story. This was mostly the case in characters who knew they were about to die. To me that just didn't fit into the general flow of the story. For example, a heated tank battle is raging and in the middle of this the author takes about a minute break describing the last moments of a single soldier. Think a Kung Fu movie with certain parts in extreme slow mo!

Final thoughts:
I do not regret buying this book. If this was Walt Gragg's first attempt at a WW3 story, it was certainly a good try. I would encourage him to read the reviews and give it another shot.

OK Story. Poorly executed details.

This will not be Team Yankee or Red Storm Rising. Not terrible but not great either. The story/drama is OK but it totally lacks the type of detail that people listening to these kinds of books demand.

Good pace, worth the purchase.

Overall not bad, except for the use of the word “clip” instead of “magazine”. There are a few minor discrepancies but those can mostly be looked past.

entertaining...not very logical progression.

ENJOYed the book and tactical elements. macro story involving nuclear weapons lacked real believability as well as international reaction.

Disappointed

The story is predictable. The end is abrupt, unrealistic and unsatisfying. Basically, most of the main characters die. The villains of the novel get away unpunished. War is treated as something to as something that has an on/off switch without taking in the political conditions and public opinions of a nation (USA) that's been attacked.

Worthy story but verbose and redundant.

How many things can be "untold" before you have nothing to say? The author's solution is to use, and re-use, and over-use, and often inappropriately use, way-ay-ay-ay too many adjectives.
The reader does a fine job but I could not escape the feeling that he was sneering the whole way through the story.
Oh, and by the way, "dove" is a noun, not a verb.

Could not put it down

One of very few that I Could not put down. Realistic, several stories within story. Intense and action packed without being too unrealistically James Bondish