Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Spiders In Heaven: A Small Kill Team Story is a military fiction thriller written by Jimmy Miller, who is a retired US Army Warrant Officer. The narrator hadn’t known the two young soldiers whose lives and sacrifice were being memorialized; they were from another Unit, but he wanted to be there at their ceremony. And while he had 19 years under his belt as a Recon Scout Troop Sergeant, the heat of that Middle Eastern country had hit him hard and that combined with the innate sense of wrongness that the sniper’s attack on those soldiers had instilled in him. The service was solemn and took place under a clear blue sky, when suddenly the Chaplain officiating at the service was hit. It was a surreal thing seeing the movement of air and the Chaplain’s knees buckling moments before the shot rang out, and chaos erupted. His first instinct was to drop and make sure everyone else did likewise. Then he went after the sniper who had violated the ceremony. His unorthodox route out of the camp did not go unnoticed by the Commander, however, who had a life-altering assignment in mind for him.

Jimmy Miller’s military fiction novel, Spiders In Heaven: A Small Kill Team Story, instantly involves the reader in the uncertainty, danger and fear that is an everyday part of deployment in the field of battle. The opening image of the memorial service had me hooked into the story, and I could feel the narrator’s tension as he wonders why the Commander has asked for him. I loved following as he assembles his Small Kill Team, especially when he goes off in search of the iconic and enigmatic Chief. Miller’s plot is taut and well-constructed, and his characters are authentic and believable. The photographs that accompany the text also work beautifully to give the reader a fuller sense of the action and environment. Spiders In Heaven: A Small Kill Team Story is most highly recommended.