Books for Guys: Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill
I used to read books like Tom Mangold’s The Tunnels of Chu Chi when I was a kid. Not great literature, but the right mix of history and thrills — for a teenager. I haven’t read a book like it since. I had no interest. That is until the Globe and Mail reviewed Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill. I was keen on it and apparently I wasn’t the only one — the book sold out everywhere. I didn’t see the book surface again until months later when I popped into Ben McNally’s new store and there it was.
Sadly I was disappointed. It was unfair but I was expecting it to be to Blackwater what Stephen Davis’ Hammer of The Gods was to Led Zeppelin — an entertaining expose. Instead it is repetitive and dense. Scahill wasn’t scared to write a book about men with guns, but he was scared to make any general statements about said men without drowning the reader in details — fearless about getting shot but scared about getting sued. I can tolerate endless detail but repetitive endless detail kills me. It reads more like a manuscript before a developmental edit.
Important topic, scary even, but this one is probably a pass. I would say read it if they do an updated edition but it looks like Scahill’s off the beat — his Blackwater blog has been abandoned. Shame.
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