Adrenaline

By: Jeff Abbott

Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins

Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

A brilliant young CIA agent has it all - until he's the lone survivor of a terrorist attack that his wife may or may not have been involved in planning - in Jeff Abbott's "exhilarating" (Harlan Coben) thriller, the launch of his fan favorite Sam Capra series.

"If you knew this was our final day together, what would you say to me?"

"Anything but good-bye. I can't ever say good-bye to you."

Sam Capra is living the life of his dreams. He's a brilliant young CIA agent. His wife Lucy is seven months pregnant with their first child. They have a wonderful home, and are deeply in love. They have everything they could hope for...until they lose it all in one horrifying moment.

Sam receives a call from Lucy while he's at work. She tells him to leave the building immediately. He does...just before it explodes, killing everyone inside. Lucy vanishes, and Sam wakes up in a prison cell. As the lone survivor of the attack, he is branded by the CIA as a murderer and a traitor.

Escaping from the agency, Sam launches into a desperate hunt to save his kidnapped wife and child, and to reveal the unknown enemy who has set him up and stolen his family. But the destruction of Sam's life was only step one in an extraordinary plot - and now Sam must become a new kind of hero.

"Breathless fun." (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

"Nail-biting." (Austin Chronicle)

"Irresistible." (Ventura County Star)

"Heart-pounding thrills." (Dallas Morning News)

"A grand slam home run." (Associated Press)

©2011 Jeff Abbott (P)2011 Hachette

Author does't think his readers are intelligent

Every few minutes there was a contradiction or an inconsistency of one kind or another.
I know you have to sometimes "suspend disbelief" but this book really pushed it to the limit.
Despite all that the story sucks you in and keeps you involved and entertained if you can get used to the grating, often frustratingly overly emphatic naration.

De-lib-er-ate

Any additional comments?

Our reader pro-noun-ces ev-er-y syl-la-ble. De-lib-er-ate-ly. Abbott's story starts explosively with a beautifully described parkour run that seems to promise that our hero will use this skill to save himself or thwart the enemy. I was with Sam Capra thru the bomb and his subsequent imprisonment (not really spoilers). Then the story developed holes large enough to drive a Hummer through. The combination of increasingly implausible plot developments and Collins's devastating reading style made me jettison before I reached the end of the first download.

Read something else!

This is one of the most overwrought, contrived books I have listened to in many a year. And the reader was no better -- in fact, probably worse.. Listening to this was like having showers of flaming daggers aimed at my cerebral cortex, and feeling smothered by tons of burning shale, with pain searing my every sinew, and gasping for life breathing oxygen, while struggling to reach the surface, gasping................., well, you get the point. Bottom line: read something elee.

Close, but not quite

I like a good thriller as much as anybody, but this one falls a little short for me. The problem? The "bad guy" dialog is, frankly, terrible. The story itself is OK, but the cheesy talk ruined the book for me. Not horrible, but there are much better out there.

Not for me

I thought this book was boring and slow. I gave up and stopped listening 1/2 way through.

Just too too

This book had too many disparate elects in it for my taste. A bit of sci-fi which I hate. A bit of almost time travel with no realism as to how people get from one place to another. And I thought the narrator was too dramatic.