Customer Reviews

Active Measures

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A Physician who moonlights as an Assassin. Interesting. An exposee of a friendly governments treatment of its refugee "problem", provocative. A look into the power elites solution to this problem ,interesting and hopefully flawed. This is just one layer of this onion though. (I won't give it away to the readers who are actually reading this as a hint as to whether to buy this book.)But, suffice it to say the deeper the main character gets into this onion,the more rotten it becomes.Extremely Provovative. I was unsure as to the purpose of this book though . Was it written as an excuse to uncover and expose this rottenness or, merely telling a tale in a "damn the torpedoes ,straight ahead" style . There are some factual errors that belie very flawed research ,you'll see them referred to if you read the other reviews.
Also you'll find some plot jumping,and the odd credibility gap.But its that "Extremely Provocative" layer of the onion that make this worth a read. And I'll give one hint here ,its not the Swedes who end up with the blackest eye.
Would be glad to hear from any Swedish people regarding the true situation in your country regarding refugees.I'm aware that is a problem in several European nations.

Active Measures by Alexander Court is an exciting book. From the very beginning, I found the story intriguing and informative. I look forward to Alison Carter's next mission.

I really enjoyed this book. I picked it up in an airport for an East to West Coast flight. It is a fun thriller that takes an interesting historical premise and pushes it to the limit. A lot of Swedish readers seem offended, but this makes the book more intriguing. Is there truth to the author's claims? Is he getting close to a touchy subject? There are a few editing mistakes, but sadly, what modern book doesn't have them. This book is a solidly good political thriller. It is there to be enjoyed, not to be scrutinized as reference material.

This is an excellent read and gives a unique insight into psychological espionage from the perspective of a Physician-Assassin. If you like spy and political intrigue-type novels, then you will really like this one. If you are more the Historical Novel-type and historical accuracy is a must, then you might get distracted by some of the author's historical "liberties". As far as the criticism about proper Swedish spellings etc, if you are the kind of person that bases your judgement of a book's enjoyability on such things. then this one isn't for you. If you like spy thrillers with an interesting point of view, check this one out!

I'll start with some things the author got wrong in the book: (1.) The Swedish flag is blue and yellow, not red and white (the cover artist got it right, the author didn't). (2.) Sweden does not have capital punishment, for anything. (3.) It is no secret that Sweden broke its neutrality several times during WWII (helping Germany, England and Finland in particular - during different time periods). Contrary to what the author seems to believe, Swedes are well informed about this (several investigations of WWII activities have taken place since the 50's). (4.) The "famous Swedish mineral water" is called Ramlösa, not Römulus (the second name doesn't even sound vaguely Swedish, it sounds more like some bogus-language from Mission:Impossible). (5.) Swedish for "cheers" is "skÃ¥l", not "skÃl".

... and the list could go on and on and on ...

Being a Swedish citizen I was at first very interested in this contemporary cloak-and-dagger novel (it takes place in Sweden - apparently the author spent a few weeks here on vacation).

The entire idea of a contemporary Sweden being some kind of dictatorship (very much like Pinochet's Chile) is utterly ridiculous. If you need a dictatorship country for a book, I fail to see why you can't use one of the many that actually exist. Or, just make one up (this author seems having no problems making other things up, like "PÃ-NI" - supposedly some kind of national anti-terrorist force in Sweden... except that the author has a huge problem with the Swedish letters "Ã¥Ãö").

Well.. and as for the plot, it's just plain silly. Some kind of James Bond type doctor who is both a healer and an assassin is sent to kill another doctor who is Mr. Evil himself... doing wicked experiments and sterilizations of non-Aryan people. Blaha.

This is probably the worst book I have ever read. I did laugh a lot at the total idiocy of the author though.

If you know a lot about Scandinavia - read it for the laughs. If you don't - you're better off without it.

I'm a swede myself, so I wonder of what country A.Court actually is writing about. Because I don't recognize Sweden in his version. First I thougt he had mixed up Sweden with recent Serbia, but in the final chapters I wonder if he havent had Afghanistan in mind. His background research looks like it's based on some (small) recent history reports but mainly on some more-then-typical tourist broschures. I thought that you could expected more of a "world-recognized operational expert" in the field of destabilize governments and psychological warfare. Anyway! I'm not insulted. I havent read such a funny novel in years. Its funny because its so stupid. Its true that nobody can learn Sweden about lying of its history(especially when it comes to WWII) but if anybody thinks he know something about how its in Sweden after he had read this novel, he is terribily wrong.

A fast read but not the way to learn modern Swedish history. The author confuses fact and fiction hopelessly. Can't even get the Swedish flag right on page 210.

Alexander Court brings an intrigueing and scary situation to lite in this thriller. For all people that thought Sweden was a nation of good guys think again. He uses fact and fiction to tell people the way things realy are over their. As a former government employe he would know this stuff.

It is hard to capture this book. It makes, in fictionalized form, some poignant observations about U.S. as well as Swedish collaboration with Nazi Germany. The elevation of these items to closely guarded "secrets" is inaccurate. Walls of silence, at least for the U.S. participation, might be more accurate. Within days after reading the book (talking about Ford and GM) the news broke about IBM, its Swedish subsidiary and the "Hollerith Baracke" apparently standard concentration camp inventory.

As actual story telling, the book fails to convince. It starts out OK, but the actions of the protagonists, as well as of the Swedes, defy common sense. The author could have written an exposé, it might have been good. But he is no novelist.

This is an amazing novel. Alexander Court has used fact to create a chilling fiction. After reading this book in two evenings I did some background checks on Court's historical information and I was shocked to find out that the events were based on reality. The book was exciting and fast paced. It put goose bumps up and down my neck. You need to buy this!