Book Review: Dead Fall by Brad Thor

Bombs, bullets and expositional dialogue.

Oct 05, 2023

Dead Fall by Brad Thor. Narrated by Armand Schultz. Simon and Schuster Audio, 2023. 11 hours (approx.).

I have written elsewhere that action movies and thriller novels are fantasies. There is nothing wrong with this provided the viewer or reader is able to suspend his disbelief. Some audiences struggle with this while others are willing to go on whatever ride the creator(s) invent. As for myself, I am perfectly willing to believe a band of dwarves and their Hobbit friend fought a dragon to recover a lost treasure. But one man dispatching three Russian soldiers with a knife while their comrades go unaware?

Moments like this in Brad Thor’s Dead Fall may take the reader out of the story like a cold bucket of water thrown on a dreamer. It did for me. Others won't have this problem as they understand that it’s a fantasy. In any case, such scenes are fleetingly rare.

Scot Harvath is a recurring Thor protagonist. He is the typical action hero: former military, strong, resourceful and ingenious, kills all the bad guys, etc., etc. In Dead Fall, Harvath is working for a private organization that regularly does stealth work for “the White House.” His mission is to extract an American hostage from Russian mercenaries in Ukraine.

Thor’s ability to incorporate contemporary and historical events is impressive, although at times the novel reads like a history book. There is quite a bit of expositional dialogue and chunks of narration to explain this country's involvement with that affair, or whatever. Geo-politically minded readers will find this entertaining while others (myself included) will not. The same can be said of the military tactics detailed at relevant times in the book (this I did find fascinating and would read another Brad Thor novel for it alone).

The Russian mercenaries that are the antagonists are part of the Wager Group, a real-life paramilitary organization fighting for Russia in Ukraine. The group made headlines for an attempted rebellion back in June 2023. It was too late for Thor to add this detail to his novel. Nevertheless, it is an interesting point where life meets fiction.

Thor’s fictional mercenaries, called the Ravens, were recruited from prisons and insane asylums. They travel from defenseless village to defenseless village raping, pillaging and killing. There are a lot of violent descriptions associated with this but mostly after the fact. For example, Harvath’s team finds nuns hanging from a church ceiling à la Predator 2. It’s a bit much, but Thor is trying to establish his villains as deserving of what they get.

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“Deserving it” is an important part of action/thrillers. Without it, James Bond would just be another psychopath. Scot Harvath has a near-psychopathic moment when he kneecaps a Russian and leaves him to burn alive. Books like this take morality for granted, and, generally, that works well. The drawback in Dead Fall is that the final confrontation with “the colonel” - the Raven’s leader and therefore a literal and metaphorical boss fight - means nothing. He’s just another enemy soldier needing to be dispatched. More character development would have been appropriate here. After all, the best villains have a good point.

The colonel’s point is pleasure and greed. As already stated, the Ravens take whatever women they want. They also search for and use drugs. They capture priceless works of art. All very evil but all very vanilla.

There are a few side plots as well. One involves two FBI agents investigating an apparent suicide. Spoiler, he was murdered by Russian agents. It was a well-done side plot. However, being only tangentially related to the main story, one wonders if it could have been a separate novel. With a runtime of over 11 hours, Dead Fall could’ve afforded the cut.

Overall, Brad Thor has written an excellent novel for fans of Stallone, Schwarzenegger or Van Damme movies. Complete with leaps from exploding trains, narrow escapes from burning cabins and shootouts in abandoned castles, Dead Fall has got it all - if you’re into that sort of thing. And if you’re not, perhaps the politics or military operations will entertain you.