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The Sentries
At 22 Jason Trench was a lieutenant commander in the US Navy and determined to defeat international communism. For it was Cuba that presented such an insult to national pride, and it was his attempt to rid America of Castro's country that he mobilized his army of 42 men.
310 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
62 people want to read
About the author
Ed McBain
715 books671 followers"Ed McBain" is one of the pen names of American author and screenwriter Salvatore Albert Lombino (1926-2005), who legally adopted the name
Evan Hunter
in 1952.
While successful and well known as Evan Hunter, he was even better known as Ed McBain, a name he used for most of his crime fiction, beginning in 1956.
He also used the pen names John Abbott, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, Dean Hudson, Evan Hunter, and Richard Marsten.
While successful and well known as Evan Hunter, he was even better known as Ed McBain, a name he used for most of his crime fiction, beginning in 1956.
He also used the pen names John Abbott, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, Dean Hudson, Evan Hunter, and Richard Marsten.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 15, 2017
‘The Sentries’ is about angry white men who are frightened by what they see as the drift of America and construct a drastic plan to put it back on track.
It’s a book which, when read in 2017, manages the strange trick of feeling both timely and incredibly dated. Obviously, these angry white men are still out there, they are still coming up with scarily crazy plans and they still have the utter commitment that their path is the only true one. Except, from where I’m sitting, the angry white men aren’t at the fringes of society anymore, they have the White House.
At its best, this feels like one of those Stephen King stories where a bunch of disparate people come together to face some dreadful external threat. King however generally has a better grip on the various strands than McBain manages here. There are too many extraneous characters, people who could be completely omitted from the plot with no dent on the narrative whatsoever (including one female character whose motivations are utterly impenetrable). In the plus column, the slow and patient unveiling of the villain’s scheme is masterful, while the villain himself – the darkly charismatic, Jason Tench – is a superbly, menacing present. But, for all that’s good, it builds to an ironically anticlimactic ending, which is annoyingly frustrating.
It’s not a bad book by any means, at points it’s an incredibly tense and scary thriller. But maybe, read in 2017, ‘The Sentries’ was always going to disappoint. It’s not the book’s fault, but nothing in it now feels as frightening as real life.
If you get chance, please visit my blog for book, TV and film reviews - as well as whatever else takes my fancy - at frjameson.com
LIke my Facebook page
Or follow me on Twitter or Instagram: @frjameson.
It’s a book which, when read in 2017, manages the strange trick of feeling both timely and incredibly dated. Obviously, these angry white men are still out there, they are still coming up with scarily crazy plans and they still have the utter commitment that their path is the only true one. Except, from where I’m sitting, the angry white men aren’t at the fringes of society anymore, they have the White House.
At its best, this feels like one of those Stephen King stories where a bunch of disparate people come together to face some dreadful external threat. King however generally has a better grip on the various strands than McBain manages here. There are too many extraneous characters, people who could be completely omitted from the plot with no dent on the narrative whatsoever (including one female character whose motivations are utterly impenetrable). In the plus column, the slow and patient unveiling of the villain’s scheme is masterful, while the villain himself – the darkly charismatic, Jason Tench – is a superbly, menacing present. But, for all that’s good, it builds to an ironically anticlimactic ending, which is annoyingly frustrating.
It’s not a bad book by any means, at points it’s an incredibly tense and scary thriller. But maybe, read in 2017, ‘The Sentries’ was always going to disappoint. It’s not the book’s fault, but nothing in it now feels as frightening as real life.
If you get chance, please visit my blog for book, TV and film reviews - as well as whatever else takes my fancy - at frjameson.com
LIke my Facebook page
Or follow me on Twitter or Instagram: @frjameson.
April 21, 2019
Initially promising but ultimately pointless thriller. Dishonourable discharged and rabidly anti-communist Jason Trench hires a small private army with the intention of provoking an armed confrontation with Cuba, giving the US an excuse to avenge the Bay of Pigs "humiliation" and invade. So far so good, except that the plot meanders through a series of seemingly detached characters and flashbacks to Jason's time in the army. His wife is the most interesting and the strongest character, and the real mystery of the book is why she married him at all - a question that is never answered. The end is a cop-out in that it betrays genre ambitions in favour of cornball literary pretensions. My first McBain, and probably my last.
August 16, 2020
Some right wing fanatics takes over a small Florida Key. From there, they will launch a suicide mission against Castro and drag the US into a hot war against the Communist menace. Can the people of the key scuttle the march to war?
I did finish the book so I know the answer to the question. To get there,you must wade through endless pointless flashbacks and the interminable psychological profiles of a collection of knaves and cowards and cheating raftink men who probably should all die. Many of them do — so there is that.
What did they die for? An anticlimactic damp squib of ending that was meant to be ironic and intellectual and artistic. But like many such endings, it just makes the whole mess pointless.
Skip this. You’ll spend too much time reading and be really angry with McBain at the end of it
I did finish the book so I know the answer to the question. To get there,you must wade through endless pointless flashbacks and the interminable psychological profiles of a collection of knaves and cowards and cheating raftink men who probably should all die. Many of them do — so there is that.
What did they die for? An anticlimactic damp squib of ending that was meant to be ironic and intellectual and artistic. But like many such endings, it just makes the whole mess pointless.
Skip this. You’ll spend too much time reading and be really angry with McBain at the end of it
December 18, 2016
I have enjoyed the 87th Precinct and the Matthew Hope mysteries by Ed McBain for years. This one goes off in another direction but a timely one even though written in the 1960s. A group of men who consider themselves patriots and guardians of freedom feel the US is being too passive in its resistance to Communism. So they make and implement a plan to force the US into a war against Communist countries. Although this plan fails, McBain's story shows the potential power of small but determined extremist groups.
August 5, 2024
Ed McBain goes normally for detective novels, and that has been so far what I’ve read from him. This goes in a totally different direction. Jason Trench, a “patriot”, wants to do… something patriotic. Not clear what, but in involves taking a 8-house-and-a-diner town in the keys called Ocho Puertos (as many “puertos” as homes, apparently) with a bunch of trigger-happy lowlifes that apparently had nothing better to do that time of the day. And while a hurricane, Flora, is looming in the distance.
It is a short novel, but even so it holds enough pages to tell you the story of a Coast Guard captain that has no bearings whatsoever on the action. The author deftly tries to keep from the reader information that is unknown also to some of the characters… The issue is that when that information is revealed, it is already too late and it is a bit underwhelming. There are too many characters, some of them work, some of them not so much, but padding the novel with background information about every single one of them does not make it a real page-turner. Also, the abundance of naval terms shows the author knows his ships (or boats, whatever), but I still don’t know, and probably don’t care, what’s a bosun.
Maybe it was a path he did not follow in his career… And he did well.
It is a short novel, but even so it holds enough pages to tell you the story of a Coast Guard captain that has no bearings whatsoever on the action. The author deftly tries to keep from the reader information that is unknown also to some of the characters… The issue is that when that information is revealed, it is already too late and it is a bit underwhelming. There are too many characters, some of them work, some of them not so much, but padding the novel with background information about every single one of them does not make it a real page-turner. Also, the abundance of naval terms shows the author knows his ships (or boats, whatever), but I still don’t know, and probably don’t care, what’s a bosun.
Maybe it was a path he did not follow in his career… And he did well.
September 9, 2018
The action takes place in early 60's America. The Cold War is seriously brewing. A group of Super Patriots are not happy with the state of America and decide to take action...
Led by a former naval officer this team of Super Patriot radicals takes over a small strip of land in the Florida Keys with a more sinister plan to follow.
The purpose... make America take immediate and forceful action regarding the communist threat.
This is a time capsule thriller of America and its culture and mores of the late 50's and early 60's...
Mcbain also throws in the threat of a devastating hurricane just for fun as the action proceeds.
Led by a former naval officer this team of Super Patriot radicals takes over a small strip of land in the Florida Keys with a more sinister plan to follow.
The purpose... make America take immediate and forceful action regarding the communist threat.
This is a time capsule thriller of America and its culture and mores of the late 50's and early 60's...
Mcbain also throws in the threat of a devastating hurricane just for fun as the action proceeds.
September 2, 2020
As one reviewer wrote, this is terribly dated but terribly relevant 55 years at it was written. It is an exciting thriller about a right wing extemist's plot to invade Cuba and start an international conflagration. Jason Trench is an ex Navy officer with racist and xenophobic views and has issues with anger management. Yet he has hatched a detailed plan to take over an island in the Florida Keys, commandeer a Coast Guard cutter and attack Cuba.
Good character development but somewhat disjointed writing style. I was rather disappointed by the ending. Sometimes you wonder if Ed McBain is sympathetic to Trench's goals.
Good character development but somewhat disjointed writing style. I was rather disappointed by the ending. Sometimes you wonder if Ed McBain is sympathetic to Trench's goals.
July 21, 2021
Time spent with a master craftsman telling a bad story is still time spent with a master craftsman. Yes, this book fails as a thriller - the lousy ending deserves particular mention - but admirers of Evan Hunter/Ed McBain will find a lot to like in this one. The rich characterizations, the superb dramatic moments, the smooth-as-silk dialogue: it's all what a fan would expect to find. I have no regrets reading it. In fact, I reached for another Hunter book as soon as I was finished with this one.
November 1, 2020
Despite myopic reviews here oddly relating the book to this current time period, the book's problems are in construction and setting. I turn to my podcast to review this book and similar problems with McBain's Matthew Hope series.
Here's the podcast:
https://anchor.fm/swampysflorida/epis...
Bottom line: I don't recommend this book 2 out of ten points.
Here's the podcast:
https://anchor.fm/swampysflorida/epis...
Bottom line: I don't recommend this book 2 out of ten points.
October 3, 2015
This took me a while and a couple of tries to get into because McBain does a very good job of putting you inside the minds of a bunch of, well, McCarthyite nutjobs in the 1960's trying to engineer a war with the USSR. Once I finally got into it McBain did his usual cracking good job with the tension and characters with his unflinching eye. It would have rated higher if he hadn't decided to get cute with the ending.
July 11, 2016
Another waste of a book and my time. Ed McBain let me down on this one....
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April 25, 2017What is known as a "cliff hanger." Terror adventure where a band of dedicated [??] take over a town and a Coast Guard Cutter.
(read 9/28/67)
(read 9/28/67)
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews