Hazardous Duty

Presidential Agent Series, Book 8

By: W.E.B. Griffin, William E. Butterworth IV

Narrated by: Dick Hill

Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

The Presidential Agent adventures return, in the most surprising novel yet in the #1 Wall Street Journal – and New York Times–bestselling series.

Mexican drug cartels are shooting up the streets of Laredo and El Paso. Somali pirates are holding three U.S. tankers for ransom. The President of the United States is fed up and, as Commander in Chief, has what he thinks is a pretty bright idea — to get hold of Colonel Charley Castillo and his merry band and get them on the case.

Unfortunately, that will be difficult. Everybody knows that the President hates Castillo’s guts, and has just had him forcibly retired from the military, and now Castillo’s men are scattered far and wide, many of them in hiding. There are also whispers that the President himself is unstable — the word “nutcake” has been mentioned.

How will it all play out? No one knows for sure, but for Castillo and company, only one thing is definite: This is going to be hazardous duty.

©2013 W.E.B. Griffin (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Recorded by arrangement with G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

Critic reviews

"Tough-fisted . . . hard-edged . . . Griffin’s formula is straightforward: Set up a bunch of obstacles, and let us watch Charley Castillo knock them down one at a time. His novels promise action, suspense, and rousing entertainment, and they never fail to deliver." ( Booklist)

Not the same

Disappointed, what I thought was going to be another interesting Castillo story turned out to be a farce. Story line was repetitive and characters were silly. This book was not worth the purchase.

Ridiculous and embarrassing

Soooo bad. Really rather appalling. If he didn’t know how to write the final book - he should not have.

Very disappointed!!! Recap of previous books and no real mission. Just a money grab...don't waste your money!

Very disappointed!!! Recap of previous books and no real mission. Just a money grab...don't waste your money!

Not true to series

Author has spent years writing a series of books that have a specific feel and tenor and then chose to presumably end the series with this farce. Horrendous.

Too Much Repetition from Prior Books

I understand the humor aspects of the MASH like episode but there was too little new story and way too lengthy in rehashing information from the past. Occasionally I felt deep sorrow for the brilliant Dick Hill and his having to read parts of this i.e. the incredibly boring redacted articles. the resurrection of the secret service agent with no explanation made it tough to take the book seriously, I can only hope that was the point and we'll get back to the storyline with the next one.

Worst WEB Griffin book ever.

The absolute worst book ever written by WEB Griffin namesake.

If this is what the series has come to then this will be my last venture with this author.

So loved the early “men of war” series and others by Griffin but this is an absurd writing which should have never been published under his name.
Extremely disappointing.

Very very disappointing!

One of the worse books I have ever read, I'm guessing it is the final result of a dispute with the publisher, the author just putting down words on paper in no particular order to fulfill some contract.

Dissapointed

Would you try another book from W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth and/or Dick Hill?

I am not sure

Would you ever listen to anything by W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth again?

I am not sure

Any additional comments?

I have listened to this entire series. I found this iteration to be farcical. It finally started to resemble the original story structure during the last five minutes. The ending was incomplete. If you are a fan of the Presidential Order series skip this one.

stupid

worst book w e b has ever written , i have read dozens of his books and this was not written by him in my opinion

Can this book be [Redacted] from the series?

What disappointed you about Hazardous Duty?

Seriously? The previous book, Covert Warriors, was bad. But this is absolutely awful. Even I could vomit up the old story line the way it was represented in this book. Over half of the book is a rehash of the series, and to just throw a convoluted plot into the middle and expect it to be good? No thank you.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Dick Hill?

Yes, I like Dick’s presentation. Some people don’t. At times his accents get mixed up, but with a book written this way, how could you not.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Hazardous Duty?

I would cut most of the first half, and send it back to the author for some true plot development.

Any additional comments?

Avoid this book. It’s not worth the money (credit). I can’t believe I pre-ordered this. The rest of the series is not bad. In my opinion, the author got lazy.