Q.R.F.

A Novel of the Iraq War

By: Craig DiLouie

Narrated by: Garrett Michael Brown

QRF: military term meaning quick reaction force. When a unit in trouble hears, "The cavalry is coming," they’re talking about these guys.

Eleven years after coming home from Iraq, Jim Cooper lives a quiet civilian life of wandering. When he hears his old squad leader has been captured by ISIS, while doing humanitarian work in an embattled Mosul, he reconnects with comrades from his old unit to reflect and mourn the execution they know is coming.

Reminiscing deep into the night, an unlikely, wild plan to rescue Sergeant Ramos takes shape. The war-torn Iraq to which Coop and his comrades plan to return, however, is a very different place than where they’d fought back in ’04. In 2016, Mosul is now controlled by the ruthless Islamic State and under attack by the Iraqi Army in the largest and bloodiest urban battle since World War Two.

Rescuing Ramos appears impossible. Coop’s comrades have gone soft in the years since they left the service. They’re not the same men they were when they wore the uniform. But they swore an oath to each other as sacred as the one they gave their country, and it is never-ending.

©2023 Craig DiLouie (P)2023 Craig DiLouie

A bit slow until the end

Lacks the constant tension of the Crash Dive books but still well told. I feel like the narrator’s voice doesn’t quite work in a modern war in my opinion. Needs something a bit more gruff and less WW2 newsreel sounding.