The Lions of Lucerne

By: Brad Thor

Narrated by: Armand Schultz

Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

In a daring and chilling debut, Brad Thor draws us into a sinister labyrinth of political intrigue and international terrorism, serving up an explosive cocktail of unrelenting action as one man is pushed to the edge.

On the snow-covered slopes of Utah, the unthinkable has just become a nightmarish reality: 30 Secret Service agents have been viciously executed and the vacationing president of the United States kidnapped by one of the most lethal terrorist organizations in the Middle East - the Fatah Revolutionary Council.

But surviving agent and ex-Navy SEAL Scot Harvath doesn't believe the Fatah Revolutionary Council is responsible for the attack. Driven by his professional code of duty and honor, Harvath creates his own rules to get some answers. But his search for the truth raises the blood pressure of his superiors...and casts his own life in mortal jeopardy. The deadly machinations have been set in motion by a shadowy coalition, comprising some of the highest-ranking officials in government and business - men who operate above the law, men who realize the threat Harvath poses to their hidden agenda...men who will do anything to stop him.

Framed for murder and on the run, Harvath takes his own brand of justice to the towering mountains of Switzerland where he finds an improbable ally in the beautiful Claudia Mueller of the Swiss Federal Attorney's Office. Together they must brave the subzero temperatures and sheer heights of treacherous Mount Pilatus - and enter the den of the most notorious team of professional killers the world has ever known.

©2012 Brad Thor (P)2012 Simon & Schuster, Inc

Critic reviews

"Bottom line: Lions roars." ( People)

Fun thrilling book

This chase went all over the world. It was fun to listen too. The author went into some unnecessary detail about the LDS church that could have been left out. Makes me think he has an agenda against the church since some of his details were not completely true. All that aside I found myself coming back to the book several times a day. Great performance by the narrator as well.

Talk about a Thriller!

Amazing twists & turns! Keeps one guessing who is good & who is bad. I will listen to this book often.

Great Story

Can’t say enough how good this book is. I love all of Brad Thor’s books and this was his first and best hit out of the park!

great Read

it wad a good read. very enjoyable. throughout the book your intetest in seeing what comes next is high.

Bones of a great thriller

This book has the bikes if a great thriller. The plot is a clever, and there was a ton of action. The mail character was likable, and he could become the star of a great series. Subsequent books would require improvements, however. I understand that this is book one for this author, so I have hopes that some of these issue will be resolved in future novels.

My primary complaint is that the other characters were relatively shallow, falling into very general categories based on the role that character was designed to play. Some of them had little to nothing to differentiate them from the archetype of the role.

A related problem was the portrayal of “others”. The most egregious example being the inaccurate and offensive portrayal of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 10 minutes of research would have corrected factual errors, and a little effort could have rendered scenes with such people more accurately without affecting the story. Swiss people and people from southwest Asia were also painted very stereotypically. Claudia (a Swiss woman) was mainly described as “beautiful” and “organized”, which is disappointingly shallow for the secondary protagonist.

Finally, there was incorrect geography and relative locations in some of the scenes in the United States. Granted these were minor, but I don’t see how getting them right would have affected the story. I can’t speak to how correct some of the European locations were, but I am left wondering. Of course, some creative license is fine, especially if it exaggerates some known legend and is critical to the plot, but it should otherwise be accurate.

A bit too cheesy for me

Good narrator, but story was a bit too cheesy for me. The end especially lost me. It has a lot of action/spy movie stereotypes that borderline parody.

Another great listen

What a great tale. I enjoyed the story, the plot twists, and the ending. The conclusion wrapped up all the bits. I loved it.

Awesome Story

Great series and really good story and keeps you glued to your device waiting for more

Excellent

I enjoyed this book extremely from cover to cover! The reader changes voices extremely well and that helped me follow the story even better. Thank you!

Enjoyable But Not Believable

This was my first book from this author. Overall I enjoyed it, but I also rolled my eyes a lot. The general plot outline was interesting, but the writing was incredibly predictable. There was also a lot of very unbelievable “scenes”.

Probably the most jarring for me was the egregiously incorrect narrative around the climbing parts of this book. A little bit of of research by the author would have made it much more enjoyable.

Not a bad story, but definitely amateur writing.