Cold Zero: Inside the FBI Hostage Rescue Team 
asked by aries on November 24, 2006 7:37 PM
Only 200 people have ever been in Christopher Whitcomb's elite branch of the F.B.I. The Hostage Rescue Team is its most highly trained and specialized squadron-equivalent to the Navy's Seals and the Army's Delta Force-charged with terrorist capture, hostage situations, and other large-scale emergencies in the U.S. and around the world. Whitcomb is the first HRT member ever to write about his experience.
With breathtaking immediacy, Whitcomb describes the brutal training, the weapons and tactics, and the unbreakable camaraderie of the HRT. In short order, after joining HRT in 1991, Whitcomb was sent on missions to Ruby Ridge and Waco, and his frank assessment of those missions is must reading for anyone interested in modern law enforcement.
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I met Chris recently at a college reunion. I had not known him in college, but when I saw that someone from our small rural liberal arts college would discuss being on the FBI Hostage Rescue Team and more, I was intrigued. His tales were intriguing and I ordered up the book. Better still! For clearly this is a product of much thought, of much living even, and here is someone who feels like one of us doing things quite amazing, exciting, frightening, and sometimes very deflating. His prose is great, sometimes poetic. He weaves a tale in a wonderful way...as when his tale of his first killing, a New Hampshire deer, shifts brilliantly into a key moment in his role as a sniper. His reflectiveness is what grabbed me, as he has much depth of thought to add to some stark tales. I have read this book while walking, late into the night, and when I really should have been doing other things. And this despite some clear breaks between parts of the book. A rare gem. Wish I had known Chris better in college!
reviewed by localhost on November 27, 2006 12:08 AM
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This book was awesome, and the whole time I was reading it, I felt as though I was journeying right along beside Chris. A definite must-read.
reviewed by costa on November 27, 2006 10:42 AM
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This is an interesting read and Chris does mention several high profile incidents but it would have been better as a "this is my life book" as opposed to any real 'meat' but I don't think it would have done as well if he had so--hat's off....
He certainly has had an interesting career but the book winds down into a staff job with a sort of spin that is meant to keep the reader interested but doesn't. If you are reading a book of this nature you want to "be there" as was the case on several of the high profile occasions which were certainly introspective but less than exciting considering the modern warfare played out today in CT.
I do compliment him though on his service and the courage to write something about the topic because he is the only one to my knowledge that has.
He certainly has had an interesting career but the book winds down into a staff job with a sort of spin that is meant to keep the reader interested but doesn't. If you are reading a book of this nature you want to "be there" as was the case on several of the high profile occasions which were certainly introspective but less than exciting considering the modern warfare played out today in CT.
I do compliment him though on his service and the courage to write something about the topic because he is the only one to my knowledge that has.
reviewed by crick on November 29, 2006 11:42 AM