Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and authors Nelson DeMille and Alex DeMille for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

Nelson DeMille, who graduated from the same high school I did, albeit many years earlier, passed away in September 2024. At the time, he was working on this book with his son, Alex DeMille. Alex is himself a screenwriter who worked on this series with his father. The Tin Men is the third book in the series, and presumably the last. As I neared the end of this story, my brain began ruminating if this was a parting gift from the elder DeMille. He’d written numerous espionage and government thrillers. The Tin Men felt like it was a cautionary message about embracing authoritarianism. Almost two years later, my thoughts are, “What if Donald Trump had an army of ‘Tin Men?'” It feels like that is the cautionary message he was trying to get through to people who have embraced his books in the past and are of a different ideology than I am.

Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor are Army CID agents. They are dispatched to Camp Hayden, a secret military research facility in the Mojave Desert, to investigate the death of the chief scientist, Major Roger Ames. They aren’t allowed to bring in any of their own electronics. No laptops, no cell phones. The only way to communicate with the outside world is on a secure landline that is likely being listened to. They aren’t told in advance about what research is taking place there, only that it’s deeply secure.

When they arrive on base, they find that the facility is working on developing a new weapon, lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS). These aren’t drones, but robots that function much like soldiers do, only they think and act way faster and are nearly indestructible. To Scott and Maggie’s horror, they also resemble humans enough to be horrifying, with metal arms and legs and a bucket-type head with an eye slit for their sensors. It sounds like the Cybermen come to life. One of these robots was found in the laboratory with Major Ames when his body was found, evidently having crushed the Major’s head between its “hands.”

The robots were being tested against the Army Rangers. They would all participate in non-lethal exercises to see if everything that was being promised by the designers was true. So far, it had been. In 67 engagements with just a few of these LAWS, the Rangers had lost every single one. It was beginning to take a toll on the mental health of these elite men. Once an errant program is discovered in their programming, nearly everyone at the base is a suspect. The question is, who would want Major Ames dead?

The Tin Men is a fantastic thriller. I kept trying to guess exactly what was going on, but it was nearly impossible. There are hints dropped as Scott and Maggie unearth (literally) more and more information. The secret program, known as Praetorian, refers to an elite unit of the Imperial Roman army tasked with serving as the personal bodyguards and intelligence agents for the Roman emperors. Which brings me back to my original question: what if Donald Trump had an army of ‘Tin Men?” It resonates more, having finished it today, seeing the slush fund he’s created to pay and supply those men who helped him out on January 6th. They might not be the nearly indestructible robots in this story, but they will defend him with the same single-minded authority.

I loved the book as it took on a breakneck pace. It seems the people hardly sleep during the events in The Tin Men. There are so many possibilities as to who on base could have altered the programming that it was impossible to figure out. I just felt that I was observing and along for the ride. The writing truly gripped me and conveyed the sense of incredulity that seemed to possess Scott and Maggie throughout the book. It’s a sense that this can’t be real. Haven’t we had movies about this from 2001 through Terminator? Every time I hear a news clip about cloning dinosaurs, I wonder if we’ve learned anything from all of the reasons why it’s a bad idea. The same can be true of weapons that are designed with any form of artificial intelligence. I don’t doubt, though, that there are programs out there similar to this somewhere. As Scott says in the book, it’s inevitable.

I haven’t read the earlier books in this series yet. I have read many of DeMille’s other works, though. I didn’t need the background on the characters to pick up everything about them, and it stands on its own quite well. Scott is both like and unlike John Corey, one of DeMille’s other characters, with whom I have a love/hate relationship. Scott has the smart-ass attitude, but it’s a bit more subdued than Corey’s is. I could also sense Scott growing a bit. He has an instinct to protect the women around him, but he also sees them as capable. He’s not perfect, but he’s trying to be better. Maggie is something of a foil for him, although as partners they work well. There is a bit of sexual tension between them, but neither of them seems to really want to act on it. If Alex DeMille ands up continuing the series, we might see where it goes. I like the idea of them being professional and friends more than anything else, though.

The audiobook is narrated by Scott Brick, who has narrated other books by Nelson DeMille. I like his style a lot, and he does a good job here. The characters have slightly different voices without becoming too crazy. It made it a lot easier to listen to.

I do recommend The Tin Men. It’s a terrific book to mark the end of Nelson DeMille’s writing. I was sad when he died, and even sadder now that I have read his last book. It does a great job raising questions about where we’re headed as a society, as well as what it means to be human. Is it inevitable that no matter what safeguards we try to put into our technology, someone will want to exploit it for their own gain? If you like military thrillers, I think you’ll enjoy it.