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MWSA Review
Shadow Tier by Steve Stratton introduces us to Lance Bear Wolf, a member of the Crow Tribe, former Army Ranger, and Special Forces soldier. Now a civilian contractor within the Joint Special Missions Command, he keeps his hand in the military through a position in the Florida Army National Guard. When his National Guard team is called upon to provide intelligence and training support to a Mexican Army Special Forces unit, in relation to their war on drugs, Wolf is in his element. Their support role in a mission places Wolf in the sights of the Sinaloa Cartel.
After his parents are killed in a cartel shootout, Wolf embarks on a private revenge mission, first in a special operation with his team, then entering Mexico alone on a violent rampage across multiple West Coast Sinaloa sites. The Mexican government, under the influence of the cartel, labels him a terrorist and demands that the United States bring charges against him. During the investigation, Army Special Operations Command steps in, realizing that Wolf’s revenge tour had been the most effective known attack on the drug cartels. Charges are dropped and a new unit, the Shadow Tier, is created.
While I would have enjoyed a more in-depth exploration of Wolf’s character and motivation, the descriptions of weapons, technology, and procedures used in various operations were quite detailed. The many minor characters and subplots promise a long series of books on Shadow Tier missions.
Review by Lynn Ellen Doxon (April 2023)
Author's Synopsis
Lance Bear Wolf, a Crow Indian by birth and an American Special Forces leader, stops with his parents for a casual lunch during a family outing in Mexico. They are classically in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As they are seated in the picturesque Mexican restaurant, Wolf and his father witness and get drawn into soldiers from the Sinaloa Cartel killing the restaurant owners over a perceived slight to cartel princess Eliana Cortes, a leader in her family’s drug empire.
When Wolf and his father shoot back and save many lives, Cortes orders her soldiers to kill the Americans. Wolf’s father is killed, and his mother critically wounded. The cartel princess and her escorts get away, but not until many of their shooters are left bleeding out on the ground.
Wolf vows revenge no matter the cost.
He builds a team of like-minded men to join a new classified unit codenamed Shadow Tier—and Wolf is its head of operations, giving him free rein to build an assault on the Mexican drug kingdom. A training mission along the Arizona border provides a cover story for a devastating assault on the core of the cartel’s operations. They decimate Mexican drug runners, but there are unanswered questions,.
And Wolf is losing to the darkness of revenge.
Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle
Review Genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller
Number of Pages: 500
Word Count: 90,000