Review of East Wind, 2nd Edition
Posted: 28 Jun 2025, 09:58
[Following is a volunteer review of "East Wind, 2nd Edition" by Jack Winnick.]
A fun quick read. An espionage page-turner without significant depth, but with enough going for it that I wanted to find out how things ended. It was short enough not to be a slog, and while certain aspects of the MC's romantic endeavors seemed forced (read as, written by a teenager who just learned about the birds and the bees), the actual story had enough weight that it was easily forgiven.
What really kicked this from a below average book to a slightly-above-average book were its technical depth and real-world connections. Very pertinent is the thought of an escalation of violence amongst the global nuclear powers, and the descriptions of how each character gets to where they are in the story is realistic and engaging. I especially enjoyed how it maintains a relatively unbiased lense, through which we see the motivations of the antagonists. In my experience it is quite rare for a bad guy of this particular ilk to be allowed the freedom to express why they operate the way they do, and even in one case, to learn why their actions may not have been the right thing. That combined with the very grounded and believable approach the MCs take in their combating the threat, led me to want to really see how they pulled everything together in the end. Certain cliches are hard to avoid in this genre, but the ones found here were done with their feet firmly planted, and just smart enough to keep me on the hook.
Overall, it was a decent quick read, with somewhat shallow characters but a believable storyline and enough technical detail to keep my disbelief suspended. If you like spies and the thought of a realistic take on current geopolitical tension, but don't have enough time to take on a serious novel, this is a solid choice.
******
East Wind, 2nd Edition
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
A fun quick read. An espionage page-turner without significant depth, but with enough going for it that I wanted to find out how things ended. It was short enough not to be a slog, and while certain aspects of the MC's romantic endeavors seemed forced (read as, written by a teenager who just learned about the birds and the bees), the actual story had enough weight that it was easily forgiven.
What really kicked this from a below average book to a slightly-above-average book were its technical depth and real-world connections. Very pertinent is the thought of an escalation of violence amongst the global nuclear powers, and the descriptions of how each character gets to where they are in the story is realistic and engaging. I especially enjoyed how it maintains a relatively unbiased lense, through which we see the motivations of the antagonists. In my experience it is quite rare for a bad guy of this particular ilk to be allowed the freedom to express why they operate the way they do, and even in one case, to learn why their actions may not have been the right thing. That combined with the very grounded and believable approach the MCs take in their combating the threat, led me to want to really see how they pulled everything together in the end. Certain cliches are hard to avoid in this genre, but the ones found here were done with their feet firmly planted, and just smart enough to keep me on the hook.
Overall, it was a decent quick read, with somewhat shallow characters but a believable storyline and enough technical detail to keep my disbelief suspended. If you like spies and the thought of a realistic take on current geopolitical tension, but don't have enough time to take on a serious novel, this is a solid choice.
******
East Wind, 2nd Edition
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon