Review
Praise for No Hero
"Simple, well-told stories that will interest general readers and certainly anyone contemplating a career in special operations." - Kirkus Reviews
Praise for No Easy Day
"This harrowing, minute-by-minute account by one of the highly trained members of Navy SEAL Team Six is narrative nonfiction at its most gripping, taking the reader through the mountains of Afghanistan and inside the slightly dilapidated-looking family compound in Pakistan."
- Entertainment Weekly
“The Bin Laden story is the marquee event in No Easy Day, of course. But the formative steps in the author’s own story are just as gripping.”
–Janet Maslin, New York Times
“The book is a stomach-twisting close-up look at that historic mission in Abbottabad, told from the point of view of a super-elite member of SEAL Team Six who fired a bullet into bin Laden and helped carry away the corpse. Written in clean, polished prose... No Easy Day often reads like a gripping novel as the author recounts remarkably vivid details... No Easy Day puts you right there for every tense moment.”
–Entertainment Weekly
" ...A cast of characters, including Owen himself, artfully drawn, yet painfully human, passionate descriptions of a lifestyle that few are privy to, as well as its breathlessly paced, inexorable march toward an inevitable ending…it's a remarkably intimate glimpse into what motivates men striving to join an elite fighting force like the SEALS — and what keeps them there.”
-Associated Press
“Make no mistake: No Easy Day is an important historic document. Think if we had a first-person account of the last minutes of Hitler in his bunker. No Easy Day is brisk and compelling in its telling of the training, execution and immediate aftermath of the Bin Laden mission by the elite Seal Team Six.”
-Los Angeles Times
“[Mark Owen] has given us a brave retelling of one of the most important events in U.S. military history.”
-People Magazine
“The writing is fast-paced, and Owen and Maurer tell some good yarns in a conversational style. They also neatly capture the camaraderie, the pranks, the constant training and the evident love that the men of SEAL Team 6 have for their jobs."
-Washington Post
About the Author
MARK OWEN is a former member of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as SEAL Team Six. In his many years as a Navy SEAL, he has participated in hundreds of missions around the globe, including the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips in the Indian Ocean in 2009. Owen was a team leader on Operation Neptune Spear in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 1, 2011, which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. Owen was one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist mastermind’s hideout, where he witnessed Bin Laden’s death. Mark Owen’s account of the raid, in No Easy Day, remains the only accurate eyewitness account on record.
KEVIN MAURER has covered special operations forces for nine years. He has been embedded with the Special Forces in Afghanistan six times, spent a month in 2006 with special operations units in East Africa, and has embedded with US forces in Iraq and Haiti. He is the author of four books, including several about special operations.