Lethal Circuit

A Michael Chase Spy Thriller, Book 1

De: Lars Guignard

Narrado por: Ben Sullivan

WARNING: You will not be able to let it go until you listen to the very last minute.

From Best-selling Amazon author Lars Guignard comes the number-one turbo-charged, action spy thriller Lethal Circuit.





A Chinese satellite is on a crash course with Earth. It contains enough plutonium to irradiate a large city. 
And that's the good news.... 


Michael Chase is a 26-year-old backpacker, a recent college graduate, an amateur. He flew to Hong Kong to find his missing father. Four hours later, he's running for his life. The Chinese secret police want him dead. The Conspiracy wants him dead. And the one person who he thinks is on his side, may want him dead too. If Michael is going to live, he'll need to find a hidden piece of Nazi technology lost since World War II. And he'll have to do it before anyone else. Because if he doesn't, a little plutonium is going to be the least of his problems. Can Michael Chase team up with a beautiful but deadly MI6 agent to locate a lethal piece of Nazi technology that will save the world? 



If you can't get enough of the action of Lee Child and Vince Flynn, the intrigue of Robert Ludlum, and the adventure of Clive Cussler and James Rollins, you are going to love Lethal Circuit!

©2011, 2012 Lars Guignard (P)2013 Lars Guignard

Fast Paced Plot, reading could have been better

What made the experience of listening to Lethal Circuit the most enjoyable?

Lethal Circuit is not my normal read/ listen, as an adult genre, mystery, suspense, but I opted to take a listen for the wonderful Candace. The plot starts off strong with action immediately. The main character is in search of his father who he believes was murdered. I enjoyed this fast paced plot very much but the reader was a bit off-putting. The track volumes seem to change in the chapters and not just the reader’s tone, but the actual volume. On second he is speaking and the next he seems to be projecting at almost a yell. This made it difficult to concentrate on the plot itself at times, I found myself focusing on how annoying it was.

The author is very good at conveying the various landscapes and cities that are mentioned throughout the book. The storytelling of foreign countries seems to be his specialty (I have also listened to his Middle Grade book set in India). The twists and turns in the plot keep the reader/ listener on their toes and keep the story at great pace. You just want to keep listening.

I cannot say much more without spoilers so I will leave it at that. Overall impressions: I did enjoy the story very much, but the audiobook reader was annoying at times with his tone, and the production was off-putting with volume levels.

Would you be willing to try another one of Ben Sullivan’s performances?

Not sure, maybe

A very exciting and well-narrated story.

Although Michael’s father is a businessman who was mostly absent during his childhood, he raised Michael lovingly and they are, even in Michael’s adulthood, very close. So when his father suddenly goes missing somewhere in China, Michael is devastated, until he learns, several months late, that his father might just be alive after all. Upon receiving the news and the video to confirm it, Michael packs his bags and travels to Asia to locate his dad. But what awaits him in this foreign and often hostile country is more danger than he’d anticipated and quite a few surprises along the way.

The story is told mostly from Michael’s perspective, but Guignard included short chapters that focus on Michael’s pursuers. I must admit I found those chapters somewhat disruptive, especially since there was very little to indicate the change in perspectives. I’m not a fan of multiple points of view at best of times, but at least these chapters were short. While I could have done without them, they didn’t bother me nearly as much as I’d assumed when the first one started.

I quite liked Michael. There’s certain calmness in him that was reflected perfectly in Ben Sullivan’s excellent narration. Some might consider it dry at times, but he never slipped into an overly dramatic mode, which was especially important during the action scenes.

Reviewing a book like Lethal Circuit is extremely tricky. Everything I write or even hint at is potentially a spoiler, and I’d like to avoid those at all costs. I enjoyed every curveball this book threw at me and I wouldn’t want to rob you of the same experience. Suffice it to say that nothing is as it seems in Michael’s life. If you decide to read this, and you should, be ready for quite a few surprises.

Non-formulaic Thriller With A Unique Protagonist

Michael Chase just wants to find his father. Unfortunately, his father disappeared without a trace in China and a little digging reveals that his death was no accident. In fact, it appears his father was involved with a search for a Nazi airplane which various governments and organizations have coveted since WWII. The discovery that a Chinese satellite controlled by the same technology is falling out of orbit makes his search both urgent and a matter of life and death for more than just his father.

Most books that I rate three stars, it’s because I think they deserve exactly three stars. This book has three stars because it’s the middle rating and I have very mixed feelings about it. There are some parts that make me want to give it one or two stars (the main character accidentally ends up in the shower naked with an attractive woman, for crying out loud). But there are also parts that make me want to give it five stars, mostly the refreshingly different protagonist.

So let me get the two things that othered me about it out of the way and then I’ll tell you what made this such a unique thriller. My biggest problem was that we had two storylines with a male protagonist working with a woman who, based on their relative occupations, should have been more skillful than he was. But, of course, the male protagonist solved all of the problems with the woman acting as a sidekick. At the end of each storyline, there was a twist which made me rethink this character dynamic. However, that didn’t negate the fact that I’d spent most of the book really annoyed about it. The other problem I had was with one of these twists, which was a possibility that had occurred to me but which I ruled out because our narrator seemed to be third person omniscient. It bothered me because it made a big difference to how I experienced the story.

That said, if you like thrillers, but like me are getting a bit tired of the standard formula, you should probably give this book a shot. There are a few things that really made this book stand out to me. First of all, the main character has a background that gives him a reasonable chance of doing well after being thrown into a thriller. He isn’t just an average guy who somehow manages to do strangely well acting like a spy. Second, we know about his background because there are flashbacks to his early years with the father he’s searching for. This made me feel like we got to know our protagonist as a person a lot more than in most thrillers. It also added a bit of emotional impact to his search for his father. The twists were also pretty unpredictable, something I think it’s hard for an author to accomplish.

Finally, the narration was perfect for this type of story, but the women often ended up sounding like men. Some might argue this is an improvement over the breathy voice some male narrators use, but I found it a bit off-putting. Otherwise, the narration perfectly captured the drama of a thriller and did a great job making the story come to life.

Action packed and full of twists

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Depending on the genre you choose to read/listen to; absolutely. Anyone that loves action, spy's and a complicated twisty plot will love this!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Lethal Circuit?

What really shocked and awed me (and honestly, I am still thinking about) is the ending. The last 2 hours was non stop action and everything really starting to click in place. Not to mention, the last few chapters really threw me for a loop.

Did Lethal Circuit inspire you to do anything?

Yes, to look between the lines and not trust anyone!

Great story; distracting narration

Any additional comments?

Lethal Circuit is fast-paced thrill that I absolutely adored. I'm an old-fashioned kind of girl though, so while I appreciated the convenience an audio book brings - like listening on the treadmill, while I was prepping dinner, and of course while I was baking - I still don't think it takes the place of reading a proper book, printed on paper, with that new-ink smell. I actually found the narration distracting and don't think I got as much out of the book as I could have if I had read it myself.

Lethal Circuit has a well-written, well-imagined plot, and the writing is descriptive, making the reader (or listener in this case) feel like a part of the story. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending, but the next book in the series might help clear things up for me.