Brad

For me this book was 4 hours too long. The first third of it I thought was completely stupid. The main character does things that no one would do and that lands him in jail. Also it takes the whole book to circle back around to what the heck happens in the beginning. That said about halfway through it got decent and I finished with some excitement.

It started a little slow for my taste but did not disapoint. If you have listen to all of the Alon series you will be pleasantly surprised to hear Guidell read. It completely changes the characters. Good story, good history and good action.

Full disclosure, I am easy to please. I like exiciting, mindless books with with great American heros winning. This book has all of those qualities. The book starts a little over the top and cliche with the disgraced drunk Delta operator but then gets pretty good. And the whole time you can't help think that the guy writing this was the real deal so this must be the real deal. Anyway if you are looking for a good book to help on the drive home this fits the bill.

The bad: I'll bet Barry Eisler and Vince Flynn hate each other. Bummer that Eisler had the infamous assassin John Rain and Dox help him spew his over the top political opinions. It was just too much, sorry. I can tolerate a lot of this stuff but come on Barry. If you are a toe tag ACLU member and think that the Patriot Act was horrible and that Bush is the Devil, you might like this. Full disclosure I am on the other side of Eisler on most of his opinions.

The Good: Even though there was about 2 hours of extra polital junk, there was still plenty of entertaining action. John Rain is as usual, great. Dox is the best and hilarious and the 2 new characters were good as well. If you are a John Rain fan you still have to listen to it because it will add color for future works that I hope Eisler keeps pure. The narration was amazing. I was skeptical but Eisler was great.

All in all if you are a Vince Flynn lover (as am I) you will cringe through a lot of this, but if you are opposite you might like it.

This is a great listen. Classic Pendergast. It reminds me of some of the previous books with him at the NY museum. Great excitement and great adventure. DeGost is not in this one which is a bummer but Pendergast is great. Narration is amazing as always.

I do admit that I like brainless action packed books, but this also had a great story line. Everyone claims to be the next Vince Flynn or to have found the next Mitch Rapp and everyone falls short. But I think Ben Coes has found it. It has some really intriguing financial themes in it and the hero (Dewey Andreas) is a great hero. If you like shoot em up spy stuff this is really good. Btw there is some torturing so don't let your 5 year old listen. Oh the narrator is good not amazing but good.

Flowers is the best of the Sanford characters. I love the simple dialog between the players. This book has very little action but I could not stop listening. I will admit there is some graphic sex (not the romantic kind), but it is tolerable because of the way Sanford writes. Again that F'n Flowers is such an entertaining character. The narrator nails it also.

I know Pendergast can be a little over the top but he is such a fun character. This is great as always and I am looking forward to the sequel.

This character will give Mitch Rapp a run for his money. It is not over the top (at least to me) and the narration is great. If you like shoot em up bad guys die books that don't require a lot of deep thinking this is a good one.

Very surprising book from Mr. Cussler. No boats, no margaritas and no barely believable super heros escaping a submarine. I usually do not like period pieces, but this was amazing. Exciting and refreshing.