• The Sword of God

  • John Milton, Book 5
  • By: Mark Dawson
  • Narrated by: David Thorpe
  • Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (583 ratings)

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The Sword of God  By  cover art

The Sword of God

By: Mark Dawson
Narrated by: David Thorpe
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Publisher's summary

A man called Milton walks into town....

On the run from his own demons, John Milton treks through the Michigan wilderness into the town of Truth. He's not looking for trouble, but trouble's looking for him. He finds himself up against a small-town cop who has no idea with whom he is dealing and no idea how dangerous he is.

But Milton is double crossed and badly injured. Unarmed and alone, he flees into the remote Porcupine Mountains with a posse on his tail. His enemies thought they could hunt him down. That was a mistake, and, where Milton is concerned, one mistake is all you get.

From best-selling author Mark Dawson (the John Milton and Beatrix Rose series), The Sword of God is the fifth in the acclaimed series of thrillers that listeners love. Mark Dawson has worked as a lawyer and currently works in the London film industry. His first books, The Art of Falling Apart and Subpoena Colada have been published in multiple languages.

©2014 Mark Dawson (P)2015 Audible, Ltd

What listeners say about The Sword of God

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    363
  • 4 Stars
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  • 4 Stars
    137
  • 3 Stars
    41
  • 2 Stars
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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

UGH - Dawson's Writing Boring Polemics.


March of the monotonous! 3 STARS!!?? Why?

This Brit author knows how to spot the world's real terrorists. You thought maybe in the midst of AL-Qeada, ISIS, or perhaps, Taliban? Uh, nope. So how about Boko Haram, Al Shabab, or the North Korean Government? Again... nope, nope and nope. Dawson's 'hero' John Milton can spot them if they work for small American town sheriffs and quote the Old Testament. In fact, the slightest whiff of Republican scent's enough to tighten Milton's trigger finger.

Yep, Dawson knows that fat, stupid, and stereotypically evil white supremacists fill squad cars and offices in every rural US community. all tensed to wield their 'Sword of God'. You're safer to sleep unarmed in the Congo bush, the streets of Mosul, or San Pedro Sula, Honduras than to bristle with weapons into any South-Western U.S. town with a population less than say, 10,000.

Advice: There's no need to even hear the noisy first chapter of 'Sword of God' if you've listened to the last chapter of "Saint Death" or the first chapter of "The Driver". Absent minor differences, 'Sword of Death' simply (and I mean SIMPLY) reprises each of them.

And absent the existential threat of "The Group" dangling over Miltion's head like another legendary sword... Well this entire book's like a bottle of seltzer whose lid's been popped for a couple of months.

And then there's David Thorpe's increasingly BAD American accents.

It's one thing for Dawson-through-Thorpe's lips to endlessly bash Britain, after all his dialect allows some cred. But I'd rather get my American bashing from CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, the NYT or the Washington Post. NPR may be passing the same anti Western-Civ gas as the BBC, but it gets its mouth-music right - y'know?

Perhaps in future books Mr. Dawson will leave my USA to find some other culture to despise. After listening to five of his John Milton polemics... I'll probably never know. Goodby John Milton and God speed. Ooops... I hope that's not an Old Testament line. Honest I'm not in any white NAZI hate militias.

Honest... I mean... Honest!

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Not as exciting as the first 4 John Milton books.

I am a huge fan of Mark Dawson's books, both the John Milton Series and the Beatrix Rose series. Sword of God is quite good, but not as good as the four prior books in the John Milton series or any of the books in the Beatrix Rose series.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Cartoonish, Clichéd, Poorly Written Rehashed Plot

I, in some sort of attempt to allow Dawson to mature as a writer, lumbered through 5 of his 'books'. Along with hearing the repeated use of hackneyed cliches ('chicken lips!), these books have the sound and feel of cartoon plots. There is no flow to the stories as if the parts were taken off a shelf in an elementary writing class.
They are flatter than 'chicken lips' and any tension is nonexistent.
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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Rambo?

It start off like first blood . Sheriff drives Milton out of town. He walks back. Then it end with Milton in the woods with a bow. The story line follow the first blood motive.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Now This is Good

I have listened to the first 4 in the series, I almost stopped after the first but thought the story line had promise to tried the second which was an improvement but still the series and author were struggling. I was seeing improvement so went on and used a credit for the third book, again more improvement. The forth was well done and brought new light and space to the story line. And then this book - it completely hit the mark. Good characters and good character development. Lots of action (even if it is unreal). Yes it is a bit Jack Reacherish but there are significant differences to the character and writing. Well worth the credit and my perseverance. I look forward to more stories of John Milton's adventures.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Same - old - story line as many before

Predictable story and events, after saying that...the book was well written, well read, but very predictable... I liked the story line, and the characters were well developed

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Are ALL paramilitarists really crazy Christians?

The story was just fine until the paramilitary wackos proclaimed their mission was from God (hence the title). I know there are crazy end-of-the-world Christ-sent-me-to-blow-you-up people out there, but aren't there some paramilitary groups who AREN'T spouting Bible verses and their errand from God? Can't Christians believe both in God and the second amendment without being wackos? I would rather have had that story. This one would not have suffered from eliminating that whole aspect. It seemed it was just easier to get the plot's raison d'être from this tired trope.

Nevertheless, I love John Milton and his attempts to atone for his past while helping right some of the ills of the world. I love this special forces, black-ops, CIA (and others) assassins genre, have great respect and admiration for the training and experience these people have, but have always grieved for what it means for the soul of each of them. You cannot get to that level of competence without experiencing a lot of horror, and that has to affect you. Milton is trying to absolve and evade his past, but it keeps coming up as the only way to help.

The ending is very sad, and perfectly exemplifies how wrong our perceptions of what we witness can be. Milton makes this mistake and thereby, perhaps leaves behind something that could have helped him in his quest for peace.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Wish I wasn’t invested in the Milton Character

It started decently enough, I guess… But so much of it is ridiculous. SPOILER alert, I guess?

Since WHEN is a governor going to call in 500…. Yes FIVE HUNDRED National Guard soldiers because some Podunk sheriff says he’s got one man who shot a cop? And then after they find said, sheriff in the woods, they arbitrarily just drop him off at some farm because he says he lives there and then he gets to take off with a bomb? That’s ridiculous. he calls in the National Guard and then they’re like “Oh sure, let me drop you off to grab a shower at a sketchy farm….” I’m sorry, but was there no paperwork or follow up or anything they might need to know about 52 million murders that had just happened in the past 24 hours?

I mean come on… oh, and of course, Milton, the guy who just wants to keep things calm and stay off the radar, takes off (on a motorcycle with a gunshot wound in his arm) to go save the day and chase down the nutty Sheriff on the random inexplicable, 30 minute interlude that the National Guard gave him and the weird sheriff before they popped back up again for no reason?

Aside from how annoying it is to listen to this British dude, bash backwoods American people who are apparently all Bible thumping whack jobs…

Of course, there is no groundwork for why these people are supposedly so convicted in their craziness OR THE REASON for who they’re going to assassinate …

I could go on and on, but eventually I just stopped listening because it got so ridiculous. I do like listening to this narrator, but I’d rather listen to him tell stories about maybe people in Europe, because listening to the way he portrays Americans is just getting offensive.

Don’t waste your time with this, unless you want to be really annoyed and let your brain turn to oatmeal

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

fun listen if implausible plot.

I love John Milton but I felt the plot reached too far here. I loved the Ramboesque ambushes and more but the end felt lazy and had way too many leaps of faith.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Cliche' , lazily written storyline.

It was very difficult to get through this. if I could have gotten a refund, I would have stopped listening after the first couple chapters. The depiction of the antagonist is, predictably, a white, male, rural, Christian. clearly, he's not intelligent, clearly because he believes in God, he's crazy. It just pounded and pounded that fact into the story, constantly having the main antagonist reciting scripture and making sure the reader knew that only an dimwitted crazy would ever read the Bible. The method, of causing the attempted attack was, of course, with diesel and fertilizer and going to be detonated at a federal building. ring any bells? Come on. at least try a little.
the narration, again, pretty bad imitation of an American and a country accent. I could go on, but it's not worth it.

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