Top reviews from the United States

• 

  Phillip

  5 out of 5 stars

  Truth in Fiction

  Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2013

  Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

  Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

  I first read this small, mass market paperback in 1975 as a teen-ager after reading Mark Lane's " A Citizen's Dissent" and have returned to it often. Written in the form of novel, it details the three months leading up to the JFK Assissination, and describes a high-level conspiracy involving Texas oil interets, the Military and Intelligence agencies, and incorporates Lane's own research as well as elements from Jim Garrison's New Orleans investigation of the Assassination and the plot outlined in the "banned book" "Farewell America." It details a trained assissination team supervised by a "technician" who is overseen by a CIA case officer who reports to high ranking Intelligence officer. The novel also includes an Oswald impersonator and is well-written using a series of scenes by dates, as if it were a play or screen-play. The film of the same name is simmiliar but the novel is far more detailed. If there is a "truth" to the JFK assassination, this novel is a very good glimpse of it.

  Read moreRead less

  16 people found this helpful

  Helpful

  Sending feedback...

  Thank you for your feedback.

  Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

  Report

  Sending feedback...

  Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.

  Sorry, We failed to report this review. Please try again
• 

  Christian D. Orr

  3 out of 5 stars

  Interesting but flawed

  Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2023

  Format: Paperback

  Verified Purchase

  Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

  Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

  “Executive Action” book review

  I read part of this book back in 1985 at the tender age of 10 after watching the movie on KCOP-TV Channel 13 in L.A. Now, 38 years after, I’ve finally read the novel in its entirety, with an adult’s perspective.

  The novel certainly holds your interest. It also goes into far more elaborate detail than the movie does.

  For instance, one of the novel’s two co-protagonists (for all practical purposes), Van Preston, isn’t even in the movie.

  Meanwhile the other co-protagonist, “the technician” (we learn his first name is Tom, but never his surname) has a much bigger role in the book that he does in the film (wherein he’s portrayed by William Watson), including a subplot where his role in the conspiracy is putting a serious crimp on his love life.

  Interestingly, one real-life figure from the alleged conspiracy to assassinate JFK who appears in the novel but not in the film is David Ferrie; movie buffs will recall his portrayal by Joe Pesci in the 1991 Oliver Stone film “JFK.”

  Meanwhile, certain major characters from the movie, like Farrington (played by the late great Burt Lancaster) are totally absent from the book.

  The authors certainly have a way with words, as most starkly demonstrated in two scenes where Van Preston takes a trip to the so-called “Primeval Woods in northern California,” which is evidently a thinly veiled stand-in for the real-life Bohemian Grove. These scenes are lurid and quite frankly depraved.

  Interesting description of Jack Ruby as “a creature sent out from central casting to play an attendant hood in the B-movie world of the Warner Brothers in the 1930s.”

  Meanwhile, the book’s back cover blurb claims that “The authors, Donald Freed and Mark Lane, have researched deeper and know more about the assassination of John F. Kennedy than any other living human beings.” Yet they commit some egregious factual errors that belie such claims:

  —They quote Nellie Connally as saying to Jack Kennedy (just before the fatal and fateful shots were fired) that “You certainly can’t say that the people of Dallas haven’t given you a nice welcome.” Her actual words were "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you;” moreover, the authors somehow omit Kennedy’s reply (his last words to boot) of “No, you certainly can’t.”

  —In describing the actual death of President, Messrs. Freed and Lane write: “The skull, the hair, the brain, the face, the eyes, the tongue, the bone, the blood of John Fitzgerald Kennedy: exploded in a pulp.” Um, okay, JFK’s skull, brain, and blood certainly did explode, but anybody who’s scene the autopsy photos, whether in nonfiction books on the assassination and/or the Oliver Stone film, knows that the face, eyes, and tongue remained perfectly intact.

  —Not once, but twice referring to the Soviet intelligence agency as “KBG” [sic] instead of “KGB.” One such error, I can chalk up to a simple typo and faulty editing, but twice (and in a footnote no less)? C’mon, man!

  —The authors make the same faulty assumption that quite a few authors of JFK assassination-related material seem to make, i.e. the depiction of JFK as some sort of ultra-bleeding heart total pacifist. He wasn’t; he commissioned the U.S. Army Special Forces (AKA “Green Berets) and the Navy SEALs f’r cryin’ out loud!

  —Last but not least, Freed, Lane, and Richard H. Popkin (who wrote the novel’s Introduction) seem to think that right-wingers are the only ones capable of such vile conspiracies.

  Read moreRead less

  One person found this helpful

  Helpful

  Sending feedback...

  Thank you for your feedback.

  Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

  Report

  Sending feedback...

  Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.

  Sorry, We failed to report this review. Please try again
• 

  Amazon Customer

  2 out of 5 stars

  Not worth the time and money

  Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2019

  Verified Purchase

  Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

  Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

  Slow and boring read.

  Read moreRead less

  2 people found this helpful

  Helpful

  Sending feedback...

  Thank you for your feedback.

  Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

  Report

  Sending feedback...

  Thanks, we'll investigate in the next few days.

  Sorry, We failed to report this review. Please try again