Rating: 
Summary: Mortal Allies
Review: I've definitely become a fan of Brian Haig's with this latest (second) novel.
The South Korean Defense Minister's son is brutally murdered and raped. The people whom stand accused for this heinous crime are three US military men. Katherine Carlson, a highly intelligent and cunning civilian attorney, is representing one of the accused, a Thomas Whitehall, who doesn't stand much of a chance since the other two will testify against him. Katherine requests Major Sean Drummond to be the military co-council. Drummond takes on the job with some reservations. When Drummond was in law school, Katherine was a classmate and they constantly fought like cats and dogs. Never did they get along. So needless to say Drummond is quite baffled as to her choice of co-council. It turns out the case goes beyond just the murder and rape. Brian Haig's witty first person narrative and a fast-paced story line, gets the reader highly involved and makes this a very good novel. The South Korean setting and gays in the military are two prominent themes in the story. A great military legal thriller. Highly recommended
Rating: 
Summary: thrilling military- legal thriller
Review: JAG lawyer Sean Drummond is back with a BANG in the new Brian Haig military-legal thriller Mortal Allies, following the success of his Secret Sanction. Drummond is called from vacation to serve as counsel to Captain Thomas Whitehall who has been accused of the gay rape-murder & necrophilia of a Korean soldier. The murder has its political implications also - the deceased being the son of the South Korean Defense Minister. On arrival in Korea, Drummond is informed that he is only the co-counsel in the defense team & that civilian lawyer, Katherine Carlson, will be the lead counsel. Drummond & Carlson, though classmates in the law school, never saw eye-to-eye on anything, & their relationship is far from cordial. While Carlson, who has made a career out of defending homosexuals & arguing gay rights, has had little experience in military law, Drummond is at home in militia-legal procedure, although it is the first time he is defending a client on charges of gay-rape & necrophilia. Captain Whitehall, while admitting to being a homosexual, denies the other charges. Drummond & Carlson investigate into the matter & find that Whitehall has been made a scapegoat - that there is a bigger conspiracy that might even involve the break-up of the U.S./South Korean Military Alliance. Drummond is a street-smart, wise-guy character. He is patriotic, but not a jingoist, & he doesn't hesitate to point out a wrong, reminding me of MASH's Hawkeye. The clashes & constant effort to be "one-up on the otherø between Carlson & Drummond, makes for an interesting & amusing read - similar to Ruth Gordon's Adam's Rib (yes, the Tracy/Hepburn movie), & in Ivan Reitman's Legal Eagles. However, Haig has presented a really tough question that has found no effective answer - the question of the rights of gays in the armed forces. Though the author speaks of OGMM (Organization for Gay Military Members), formed to protect the rights of gays, it still remains a vital issue in the armed forces. Gay rights & homosexuality have been effectively dealt with in many a legal thriller (Authors Michael Nava's series protagonist Henry Rios & Tony Fennelly's Matthew Sinclair are gay lawyers) like Lynn Harris' Abide With Me, Mortal Allies I believe, is the first work that has dealt with the issue of such rights in the armed forces. Strong-themed & devoid of heavy legalese, Mortal Allies keeps the reader riveted. A couple of months back after reading Haig's Secret Sanction, & Norm Harris' Fruit of a Poisonous Tree, I voiced my thoughts on the possibility of a new sub-genre in popular legal-fiction-the military legal thriller. Now with Haig publishing Mortal Allies, & Norm Harris already at work on his next JAG thriller, I can definitely assure you, a new sub-genre in legal thrillers has been born, & Harris & Haig are its exponents. A fantastic read! Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A Brian Haig Fan is Born
Review: JAG officer Sean Drummond has been summoned away from his leave in Bermuda and he's not happy about it. His outlook on the situation doesn't brighten any when he finds out he's been ordered to serve as co-counsel defending an officer on charges of rape, murder and necrophilia. The young Korean man who was murdered just happens to be the son of South Korea's defense minister. And to make matters worse, Drummond is on this case at the request of a former law school classmate, Katherine Carlson, a person for whom the word "rival" seemed in an inadequate term. Drummond grudgingly enters into the defense, but eventually gets the feel of things and realizes their client might actually be innocent. When another of their co-counsels gets near-fatally injured and a peaceful protest turns into a massacre, he is sure there is something larger involved than just this murder case. His attempts to prove this get him involved with the CIA and force him to remove himself from the defense team. The problem with that is that Katherine has no idea how to defend the client because she isn't privy to the information Drummond has. Will the conspiracy be exposed, or will their client be another victimized pawn in a game more complicated than any of them realize? "Mortal Allies" is the second book by author Brian Haig, both of which feature Sean Drummond. This is a character that is down-to-earth, thoroughly likeable and extremely witty. And, although he tends to make some asinine decisions, he always ends up on the right track. Because the story is told in the first person, from Drummond's viewpoint, the reader is able to really get to know him...his thoughts, his attitude, the reasons behind what he does. It makes it impossible not to like and identify with him. The fact that this is a book dealing with government conspiracies and the military should not be one to put off any reader that may otherwise find it not to their liking. The sharp wit and oftentimes humorous sarcasm injected through Drummond's "narration" takes this book out of its normal genre and makes it easy to enjoy by a larger audience. Brian Haig knows how to balance the character's clever attitude with the gripping suspense involved in unraveling the truth behind the crime and he pulls the reader in from the first page making it nearly impossible to set the book down until the last word has been read.
Rating:
Summary: Another Sean Drummond Adventure
Review: Katherine Carlson, a turbo charged attorney whose crusade is defending gays in the military, asks for her old law school rival JAG Major Sean Drummond as co-counsel on a high profile case that threatens the US alliance with South Korea. Captain Thomas Whitehall, a seemingly straight arrow officer, was found in bed with the corpse of his young lover, the South Korean Defense Minister's son. Whitehall is charged with rape and murder, and anti-American protests rock the Korean Peninsula. As in 'Secret Sanction', Sean and his no nonsense investigator Imelda Peppercorn must work through a wall of brass obstacles to get at the truth. This task is complicated by the belligerent and manipulative ways of lead counsel Katherine but helped by the CIA station chief who's actually a good guy, a rarity in this type of novel. The Koreans have been running something a lot like Nelson DeMille's 'Charm School', and a local police chief is one of its graduates. Sean gets beaten up and shot at a few too many times, but he comes up with the clues that the CIA need to conclude that the kid's murder was part of a North Korean plot to change the balance of power in the world. The set up is tedious and the plot incredulous, but the action and final showdown make up for it. John Rubinstein, a superb narrator of action adventure stories, really brings Sean Drummond to life and is a big part of what makes the audiobook version work. I'm ready to move on to 'Kingmaker'.
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Summary: Rollicking Good Ride
Review: Major Sean Drummond is back and this time we find him in North Korea defending an open and shut case involing homosexual rape, murder and long list of nasties. This case looks like such a slam dunk and you kind of wonder what Drummond is going to do for 500 pages, but don't worry. This is a great, great read with several entertaining characters, sly underhanded surprises and witty narration. I loved his first book SECRET SANCTION and MORTAL ALLIES is even better! Don't miss any of his books. Brian Haig is going to be around for a long long time.
Rating:
Summary: Glad I hung in and read the whole thing. Great fun
Review: Once you realize these are intended as fun light reads verything falls into place. As Sean once said "And then I understood everything. Or nearly everything...maybe" For some reason I went into these books expecting a dead serious tale and was greatly disappointed. And in fact gave up on this book after the third chapter cuz I just couldn't (and never will) see the humor in 2.5 pages detailing someone taking a piss and the again outlandish characters. But being the library was closed I steeled myself to go on. And guess what? It got better, and better still to where I'm changing my original one star to a four. Haig's writing, stories and characters have much improved since Secret Sanction.
Hopefully Sean and company will mature even more in Private Sector and Kingmaker.
Rating:
Summary: Whodunnit
Review: One of the few books I would read more than once; such as "Harts War".
Rating: 
Summary: Kept my interest, but tedious reading at times
Review: Previous to this title I read Haig's, "Secret Sanction." That novel had a plot that was more gripping and was told in a less-cliched dialogue. "Mortal Allies," while retaining my interest with a contemporary subject matter, was more difficult to finish.
Main character, JAG lawyer Sean Drummond, is self-deprecating and likeable, and at times funny, but he sure has a hard time losing cliched-language (as another reviewer observed). The story kept my interest, as the dichotomy between Sean and Ms. Carlson (an ex-Georgetwon classmate, who was 1st in her class -- Sean being 2nd)was heightened as the story unfolded. The ending was not mind-blowing, but does pack some surprises. I look forward to Haig's, "The Kingmaker" when it arrives in paperback (perhaps a revealing comment, i.e., I won't rush out to get the hardcover, but reading "Mortal Allies" hasn't caused me to shelf this author). When is Nelson DeMille coming out with another book?
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful legal thriller set in Korea
Review: Sean Drummond is summoned to Korea. He's a JAG lawyer, and in this case he's going to act as the military member of a defense team that's mostly civilian. They're defending a gay army officer who's accused of a rape murder. As if the savagery of the crime isn't bad enough, the victim is the son of the Korean defense minister, and it's beginning to look as if any sign that the defendant might get off with anything less than the death penalty could cause the U.S. alliance with South Korea to tumble into the ocean. And that's just the beginning of his troubles. The civilian lawyer he's working for is a woman he fought with constantly in law school. She doesn't know how to try military cases without antagonizing the army, doesn't care if she does antagonize them, and is basically culturally insensitive to the Koreans, also. The result is that Drummond spends most of his time trying to repair damage she's done, or forestall what she's about to do, so that the case doesn't completely come off the rails. It comes off anyway, but in a fashion that's unexpected and interesting, and suspenseful enough, that the last third of the novel is great. The minor characters (a pair of lesbians who are co-counsels on the case, an army non-com who's their legal assistant, various officers, the defendant and his colleagues) all are well-drawn, and the whole effect is very good. I would recommend this book highly.
Rating:
Summary: A great military legal thriller!
Review: Sean Drummond returns to investigate a puzzling murder. Summoned to South Korea, Sean must look into the bizarre murder of a young Korean man. The crime is unlike anything Sean has seen, and the defendant, a young officer, swears his innocence. The Koreans see the crime as a repulsive act of homosexuality, and necrophilia, but Whitewall (the young accused officer) claims he did not kill the young man and have sex with him, and to make matters worse Sean must team up with his law school rival, Katherine Carlson, a lawyer known for taking controversial cases. As the investigation heats up, Sean senses an attraction with Katherine, one that could prove to be dangerous for both of them for behind the murder of the young man lies a conspiracy too shocking for words, friends that may be enemies, and a killer waiting for the right moment to strike again. 'Mortal Allies' continues the strong series of Sean Drummond military legal thrillers and what an enjoyable novel it is; suspenseful and well-written the novel grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until the last page is turned. Taking elements of the best military, and legal thrillers 'Mortal Allies' speeds along with an engrossing plot filled to the hilt with unexpected twists. Brian Haig is quickly taking over the territory once owned by Nelson DeMille, and he is doing a terrific job of it. His new novel deserves to be one of the summer's big bestsellers, and catapult Mr. Haig to the front of other authors writing in the genre. A MUST read! Nick Gonnella
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