ODIN

Alex Mason, Book 1

By: Blake Banner, David Archer

Narrated by: Adam Grupper

Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

ODIN is about as secret as a government agency can get....

Multiple-time USA Today and Amazon five-million-copy best-selling authors David Archer and Blake Banner have combined forces to create one hell of a thriller series!

Nobody has ever heard of ODIN.

ODIN is about as secret as a government agency can get.

Because within ODIN there is General Operations, which speaks for itself; ODIN 5i, which deals with intelligence gathering; and then there is ODIN 1i, which deals in operations so sensitive not even the CIA can touch them. All three are run with an iron first by The Chief, a giant with a gigantic IQ. His top agent is Alex Mason, hard and cool - he's a law unto himself.

But when an ODIN 5i agent based at the US Embassy in Manila goes missing and his encrypted laptop disappears with him, the whole ODIN structure is put in peril. Then the agents he was managing start to disappear one by one, and things start to look ugly.

So Alex Mason is sent to Manila, and what he finds there is the growing shadow of Chinese imperialism threatening not only America’s presence in the Pacific, but the security of the whole Western world....

This is a job for ODIN 1i...and for Alex Mason.

©2021 Right House (P)2022 Right House Audio

Just OK

Light, short read. Good for making meals, cleaning, driving to work. No big twists, just OK.

Excellent Story

Well written with well developed characters and storylines. Look forward to listening to more from these authors.

Love the partnership!

Enjoyed the story line and the characters! I didn’t care for the “chief”. Looking forward to reading next book. Like the shorter story.

Absolutely love these authors.

I loved this story. It made me laugh out loud more than a few times. Greatest narrator! Great book.

Great story and narration

I enjoyed this book. Great story and narration worthy of a listen. Looking forward to listening to the rest of the series.

Loved it!

Exciting story that moved very quickly . . . Delightful characters having fun interactions.

An utter disappointment

Wow, this was bad. The title should have been "Cliche." It was written as if two 75-year-old James Bond fan boys decided to write a book without having ever taken a writing class. On top of that, they decided to make the main character American, and set it primarily in the Philippines, without ever having set foot in America or Asia. Based on the writing, I'm assuming the authors are British.

I don't expect authors to travel to the locations of their books--that would eliminate all sci-fi and fantasy, but at least do a minute of research to add some authenticity.

The worst part of this book is the "plot," if I want to be generous with the definition. It's nonsensical and mostly non-existent, made up of a string of cliches. Alex Mason, an American "spy," who works for a super secret government agency, drives around Manila in his Aston-Martin, drinking Vespers, but eating hamburgers, while trying to solve a mystery his grumpy boss seems to know all about but refuses to tell him.

Nothing adds up until the final five pages of the book, when the main character makes a Columbo-style proclamation that had zero setup and zero cause for Mason to come to that conclusion.

I only stuck with this book because it was so short.

I was looking for a new spy thriller series and now I'm still searching. I had high hopes for David Archer and Blake Banner since they have so many positive reviews. I can't fathom why anybody who enjoys the genre could like their writing. Maybe Odin is an anomaly. Perhaps I'll give them another chance, but someone would need to convince me.