Coup d'Etat

Dewey Andreas, Book 2

By: Ben Coes

Narrated by: David de Vries

Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

When a fragile peace breaks down and promptly devolves into a rapidly escalating shooting war between Pakistan and India, the United States is forced to intervene. With only hours remaining before the conflict reaches a deadly point of no return, the White House must find a way to shut it down immediately - or risk the likelihood of a new global war.

A radical cleric has become the democratically elected president of Pakistan and uses a brutal incident in the Kashmir region as an opportunity to ignite war with India. The highly lethal conventional war spins out of control when Pakistan initiates a nuclear attack. India is on the verge of launching their own nuclear response, one that will have unimaginably disastrous results for both the United States and the world at large.

With only one chance to head this off, the president of the United States sends in his best people to do whatever it takes to restore the fragile peace to the region. With the clock ticking and Pakistan in the hands of a religious radical willing to do anything to destroy India, there remains only one viable option: to execute a coup d’état in Pakistan.

There is only one man with the skills and experience to infiltrate the live war theater and remove the Pakistani president from power. Only one man the White House can trust. His name: Dewey Andreas. Now they have to find him before time runs out.

From the author of the critically acclaimed thriller Power Down comes the latest ripped-from-the-headlines novel featuring his indelible and indomitable protagonist, the unforgettable Dewey Andreas.

Also listen to Power Down.

©2011 Ben Coes (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Enjoyed this program

The character Dewy is a perfect gunslinger of the modern age. Combined with his extraordinary gruff diplomacy and over the top intelligence, he is not to be trifled with.
The various accents in the story are stupendous. Kudos for the narration.

As usual good read

Great. Characters. Good story. Great pace. On to the next book realistic since no matter how good you are sometimes things happen

Fantastic

The excitement continues. This is the second book in the Dewey Andreas series and it certainly didn't disappoint me. The story takes some twists and turns, so keep your seatbelt buckled.

Intellectual Thriller - Awsome

Where does Coup d'Etat rank among all the audiobooks you???ve listened to so far?

Definitly in the Top 10% which is saying something, since all I read or listen to are political thrillers.

Any additional comments?

Ben Coes is clearly a man that does in depth research before writing his books. This is the second book in the Dewey Andreas series. Andreas is the hero that was introduced in Coes first book of the series Power Down, where Andreas is a supervisor on an Oil Rig off South America when terrorists attack and destroy the platform, throwing the hero into action to protect his country (the United States) and seek revenge. In Coup d?????tat, Andreas is "Called to Action" by the President of the United States, who following the events of the previous book, now sees Andreas as a National Asset and the only man that can carry out the mission. Andreas, leading a quiet life on a ranch in Australia, is tasked with overthrowing the corrupt leader of Pakistan before he drops another nuclear warhead on India.
Like most people, I am not clear on all of the inter-relations and workings of the various Middle East groups and governments. What Ben Coes describes and paints in this book, certainly "feels" right and because of that, the reader is almost immediately sucked in to the idea that a corrupt leader brought to power in a nuclear State like Pakistan really could drop a bomb on a nuclear India and throw the world into irrevocable war.
If there is a criticism, I would have to say it is in the unnecessary detail that at some points causes the story to labor (just a bit) and distracts from the action. For example, it seems our hero, Dewey Andreas, cannot get into a shootout with anyone without a full catalog description of the weapons everyone is using including Manufacturer, Model, sub-models, iterations of the weapon not involved in the battle but available if one were to have wanted it, the ammo, rate of fire, etc. etc. etc. Now I like detail, but at some point, I found myself just wanting a nice simple good guy bad guy shootout.
That said, all of the details, be they true or fiction I don't know, seem to be plausible if not true. The cause and effect of the various action choices seem to be realistic, and the flow of the story is so seemingly possible that one wonders if the story plot is actually drawn from real plans once uncovered by intelligence people somewhere.
Good, fun, thought provoking story.

great

AMAZING narrator - every accent was spot on. and authentic great story with great narration

Badass

Dewey Andreas is the Best Badass of then all! Thank you Ben Comes for creating him!

Companion to "The Brink"

I don't usually read action books - detective, mystery, action, romance, all have formulas and are completely predictable. But then, I think that's why we enjoy them - temporary retreat from reality. I enjoyed it even more when "The Brink" came on, redoing the plot as a satire.

Bit of a Disappointment

I was a bit disappointed in this book. The author set a super high standard in his first book "Power Down", which I thought to be one of the best books of this genre ever written. There is an interview between Governor Mitt Romney and Ben Coes at the end of the book, and Mr. Romney stated something that I have also noticed in many spy/military action thrillers, which is that many authors don't bother to do their homework and they make allot of "little mistakes" (Romney) and he goes on to praise Mr. Coes for being diligent in getting the minor facts straight which allows the listener to "suspend disbelief" when asked to accept something major in the story that might be borderline believable. Power Down was an outstanding example of that kind of discipline. I said to myself at the time that the real test will be if the author can continue to meet the standards he has set when his publisher is after him to produce....and do it now!....Well, unfortunately, I feel that Mr. Coes failed somewhat in that respect.

One of the "little things" that was so blatant in this book that just bugged me throughout the entire book was the authors reference to the muzzle or barrel of a gun as being a "Nozzle"! The definition of nozzle is a device designed to control the flow of FLUID! What are they killing each other with? Water guns? Maybe that's being picky, but it only took me about three seconds to Google that little common sense fact, surely the author or the publisher should have caught that if they weren't is such a big hurry to get to print. There were several other "big mistakes" that in my opinion made the story just a little too unbelievable....especially expecting the listener to believe that the United States of America would actually do what is done in the ending without major international repercussions.

That being said I still gave the book an overall four stars, and a large part of that was because of the outstanding job of the audio performer, David de Vries. Although I can't say that I would place the tone of the readers voice as being in my top 5 favorites (George Guidall comes to mind) I have to say he was especially good with Indian accents and did a decent job with Australian and Israeli accents as well. In the end I would have to say that overall I enjoyed the book, and I will probably get the third book in the series, which hopefully will be written with a little more of the intellectual discipline of the first.

Good read, but not as good as Power Down.

Where does Coup d'Etat rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I'd put Coup at the bottom of the list of this type of story. Good, but not so much compared to others.

What did you like best about this story?

The action is fairly constant. Few gaps that myake it easy to leave.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Accents and inflections. The only good accents the narrator does is Indian. Other than that, not much. Sometimes it's difficult to tell Dewey from someone else. Irish accent for Jessica? Nope.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

A chilling account of the hostility between Pakistan and India, and what it could mean.

Any additional comments?

I'm a stickler for details. One, there's no such thing as a nozzle of a gun. It's a barrel. Are you kidding me? Who says this? Second, it's a suppressor, not a silencer. Finally, I don't recall the aircraft type. It was a Sukhoi of the Indian airforce. It's SU, not sue. These things are kind of nitpicky, but if you're going to use terminology, use it correctly.

Excellent listen!!!

Captivating plot, very good character development, and twist after twist with barely a moment to relax, all tied up by a most satisfying denouement. Thanks to both the author and the narrator!!