The Profession: Thriller Novel for Mystery Lovers - Perfect for Nighttime Reading

Without delving into spoilers or a full-blown synopsis, this book was as much a psychological thriller as an action piece. So many of the elements parallel the stories of Caesar and Alcibiades, and are even explicitly referenced several times, yet the sheer scope of the parallel was somehow lost on me until the entire story wrapped up.Virtually every major piece of this story has a parallel---literal or symbolic---in the stories of Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic, and/or Alcibiades and the fall of the Athenian Democracy, from the external conflicts, the American political climate, even the widespread rise of mercenary armies (hint: Marian Reforms)Some of the negative reviews I saw (typically less than a paragraph long) either completely and utterly missed the symbolism, or just didn't care much about it. One of them seemed completely incapable to separate the author from the book's setting, somehow thinking this dystopian future is what Pressfield actually believes.Some of the more sophisticated negative reviews do have good points; the pacing is odd, and in some cases (particularly towards the end) horrendous; an event that took place less than 10 pages earlier, with no chronological exposition, is described as having happened more than a week ago.A very nice callback was also in the book, in the form of Gent recalling lessons from his previous mentor, one Vaughn Telamon of Arcadia, Mississippi. If you've read "Tides of War" you'll get it right away.Along with Pressfield's usual Warrior Ethos theme that occurs in virtually all his previous works, he introduces a new theme that could be badly simplified into "reincarnation" or some degree of "persistant self through history", as it is heavily implied that Gent is re-playing a role "he" has played countless times throughout history, complete with the prologue re-playing itself later on. This is played even greater and more bluntly with Jim Salter, who mentions his personal philosophy involving his position at "the intersection of Necessity and Free Will", which is an instant HEY I RECOGNIZE THAT for anyone who's read "Tides of War" Perhaps stretching this theme a bit, this could be seen as a "sequel" of sorts to "Tides of War".Ultimately, though, the book is simply too well crafted and narrated for its flaws to drag it down, and if Pressfield never wrote a work of fiction ever again, this would be a spectacular conclusion to his books.