The Last Protector

Clayton White, Book 1

By: Simon Gervais

Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer

Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

From the acclaimed author of the Pierce Hunt series comes a thrilling novel featuring a Secret Service agent who takes on a ruthless foe to protect the country he serves and the woman he loves.

Former air force combat rescue officer Special Agent Clayton White now works for the Secret Service performing routine escort missions for politicians. These missions may not be quite as exciting as his time in the military, but Clayton’s okay with that. It gives him more time to see his girlfriend, Veronica Hammond—an archaeologist who also happens to be the vice president elect’s daughter.

But Clayton’s seemingly manageable new routine takes a startling turn when South African mercenaries target Veronica at an awards gala celebrating her work. After this attempt on Veronica’s life, Clayton enters a complicated web of lies, betrayal, and dangerous government secrets.

As Clayton gets closer to the truth, he encounters unexpected foes pitted against questionable allies. With enemies at every turn, the only constant Clayton can rely on is Veronica. But when the threat against her turns on him, too, he faces an impossible choice: love or country.

©2021 by Simon Gervais. (P)2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Gervais’s brisk series kickoff, which jumps around the world, is built on the tension underlying the tenuous alliances among the sort of power-hungry villains who will stop at nothing. Well-modulated action scenes alternate with showdowns that reposition the pawns.”—Kirkus Reviews

“[A] solid thriller from Gervais…”—Publishers Weekly

“A thrill ride from the first page to the last! Simon Gervais is coming in hot with The Last Protector. Looking for action, intrigue, and suspense? This is your novel! Move it to the top of your list!”—Jack Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Devil’s Hand

Ok

This didn’t work for me as well as Gervais’ Simon Hunt series. It sounds odd - but I didn’t connect with the antagonists very well. Their motivations didn’t really work for me and the fact that Gervais used them to fill in backstory kind of messed up the pacing.

That said, I liked Clay & Veronica. Both have strong personalities that worked well here. The action parts were fun when they happened.

While a full & complete story, it ends with a bit of a open-the-series kind of cliffhanger. I will check out the next one when it’s released.

Narration:
Jeffrey Kafer is a good choice for action/thriller type books with male protagonists. I like his voices for the various characters and timing/energy for action scenes.

Solid 4.5 suspense suspenseful book

This was a well written and very well researched book. I deducted half a star secondary to slight dragging during the middle. Once that part was over it turned into the page turner that it was. There is a very small plot line of romance in the story.

Great performance by Jeffrey Kafer

I wish I had read this book sooner. It is that good. It is a very intriguing story that has it all, espionage, politics, corruption, sacrifice and a bit of romance. The main character finds himself as an unwitting pawn in an attempt to cover-up a multinational crime involving the top players in the espionage world. The Audible performance by Jeffrey Kafer is excellent and keeps the action going when you are unable to just read.

Good book bad narration..

Great story, centering around Clay, who was in the Secret Service, and the Vice President; who was a killer. Clay didn't want to believe it because, among other things, he was the father of the woman Clay loves. However, Veronica was already suspicious of her Dad.

Lots of bad-guys and lots of killing.

No romance worth talking about and the F-bomb was used 23 times.

As for the narration: Jeffrey Kafer has a nice reading voice, and that's just about all he does, read. When he, or any character, is in hiding and the bad guys are only a few feet from you, you DO NOT talk in your regular voice. You WHISPER! Is that so hard to figure out? That's the reason I usually avoid books narrated by him. I guess he hasn't figured that out, yet. But, I have.

Well written and narrated!

Found a great book to listen to!!!
Would look forward to another!
Will be looking forward to it!

Gripping!

Secret Service Agent, Clayton White’s assignment is to protect the daughter of the Vice President elect…she also happens to be his gf. When that assignment goes FUBAR, Clayton agrees to a mission to South Africa to apprehend the master mind behind the attack. Clayton doesn’t count on betrayal. This action packed story takes us around the world with lots of bad guys and political intrigue. Looking forward to the next book.

Another Undercover Adventure

The protector is a Secret Service officer who gets involved with the Vice President elect’s daughter, who he is protecting. Then just as he is proposing, a group attacks, trying to kill her.

This is the start of the book. The action never wanes.

Stupid combatants detract from a fight scene

So, the bad guy wants to get into a hotel room where he knows an armed defender waits. Hotel doors open inward. Bad guy decides to open door a crack and insert pistol into the hinge side of the door. Putting aside that there may not even be enough space in that crack, what would be the field of view, the working angle, etc. If the defender has half a brain cell, bad guy gets the door open and is staring into a gun muzzle with his own gun stuck in the hinge side of the door and no possibility of getting it to the open side where the defender is waiting.

Fortunately for bad guy, man in room is even dumber and forgets that he has the advantage and 3 pistols at his disposal. So he decides to go mano a mano by pushing on the door where the gun is poking through. Bad guy is too fast and strong and it turns into a struggle for the bad guy's gun because the defender hasn't even drawn his own weapon before trying to smash the gun in the door hinge.

Anyway, instead of just standing back out of the radius of the door and shooting the bad guy or his gun hand at point blank range, if turns into a fist, knife, and chokehold fight with four guns lying around on the floor. Stupid. Alternatively, the defender could have aimed his weapon at the door and, standing clear, kicked it hard as soon as it started to open. Then shoot anything that comes through. But I guess people get tired of intelligent heroes and love feeling sorry for the dumb ones when they get the snot beat out of them and have to tag team with their girlfriend to even survive.

I wrote the above after the first several chapters. After finishing the book my opinion has not changed. Gervais seems to find any excuse to deprive his protagonist of his firearms and get him into a brawl with hands and knives. And the hero inevitably gets the crud beat out of him. I definitely wouldn't want to be one of the guys in the series because they are really bad at hand to hand.

Stephen Hunter is far more creative about dreaming up situations where his protagonists find themselves without a gun. But, more often than not, they keep their guns and get the job done without hand to hand stupidity. Well, there was that Swagger confrontation with the katana.... But that didn't start by losing a gun.

...fantastic story by a very talented author.

Canadian author Simon Gervais’ “The Last Protector” is an action-packed story that takes readers around the world with lots of political intrigue, double-crosses, and terrible bad guys. Gervais’ new series’ protagonist, Clayton White is a former US Air Force air combat rescue officer, now US Secret Service agent, assigned to protect the Vice President elect's daughter. The plot and storyline of Book One of the series is straight out of a television soap opera with testosterone. From the opening combat rescue mission to the final page of the political and corporate corruption, The Last Protector, captivated me and elevated my heart rate! It is a fast-paced read which Gervais paints a comprehensive and detailed picture of a well told ‘political/corporate’ corruption story. Backstory to the plot: not only is Clayton White’s girlfriend the daughter of the vice president-elect that White is assigned to protect, but he also had White's father – a honorable military General and friend - killed to cover up his involvement in a war crime that White’s father was about to take public. The kicker though is the vice president-elect’s daughter is involved with the computer program that uncovered the crime but one of the vice president-elect’s collaborators of the war crime sent assassins to kill the VP-elect’s daughter who is protected by Clayton White, her secret service agent-boyfriend! This is when all ‘Hell’ breaks loose! The Last Protector is an outstanding thriller that kept me immersed in every chapter. Exciting. Enlightening. Exhilarating. Entertaining. It is the prime example of a complete action thriller with all the fixings – twist-and-turns, betrayal, espionage, romance and good-old-fashion ass kicking. The only thing I didn’t like about this story was the open-ended cliffhanger at the end. I understand why Gervais did it, to get readers to read/listen to Book Two of the new series, so hopefully that’s the reason for the cliffhanger ending. Nevertheless, it is still a fantastic story with an average narrator.

Great start

This is a great start to a series. I am looking forward to the next one.