Post: #1

http://www.amazon.com/Finish-Killing-Osa...0802120342

The Finish by Mark Bowden

This book was supposed to be the definitive book on the Bin Laden raid before the surprise pre-emptive release of Mark Owen's "No Easy Day". Perhaps in response, the focus of this book is on the political, policymaker, high-level strategic thinker's aspects of the raid rather than the gritty story from a boots-on-the-ground grunt. Bowden provides a fairly comprehensive and engaging picture of what happened and how it happened from the top all the way back during the Clinton days to the present. The level of detail Bowden gives to political sources in particular give the impression that most of his sources were from the White House, likely Ben Rhodes of the National Security Council.

Bowden did not interview any military personnel directly involved in the raid and as such, the blow by blow description of the operation itself was inaccurate, fairly dated and pretty much the exact same as popular press accounts at the time. It is definitely the weakest part of the book. The strongest parts of the book are learning about the detailed discussions and behind the scenes actions of senior White House officials throughout the three administrations as well as the CIA.

Verdict: This book is similar to Bob Woodward's book: Obama's War, so if you enjoyed that you may enjoy this one. If you do not care about the minutia of foreign policy or high level strategic policy makers, this book isn't for you. If you are already familiar with people such as Michael Scheuer, Bill McRaven, John Brennan, Robert Gates, Joe Biden etc. then you will not learn much new from this book. If you are looking primarily for an action packed account, go with "No Easy Day" instead. "The Finish" is primarily for someone interested in a comprehensive behind the scenes picture about the history and what happened on the raid from the POV of guys at the top. For the casual person not interested in such detail and looking mostly for action, the movie "Zero Dark Thirty" would probably be a better fit (haven't seen it myself though). Overall I would not recommend this book unless you understand that a lot of material in the book is common knowledge by now and this book isn't another "Black Hawk Down".