Pirate: An Alex Hawke Thriller

This is enormous fun -- the same ambience and larger-than-life heroes and villains as Ian Fleming's James Bond, but set in today's times and with more circumstantial detail than Fleming usually provided. The plot twists and turns agreeably. A big part of the success of this audiobook is its superb narrator, whose pace, varied repertoire of dead-on accents and dialects, and nuance would be hard to excel. I'm really glad that there are more of these books.

Pirate is a James Bond like epic replete with international intrigue, historical references, yacht chases and much more. The story line is intricate and hard to hold onto in places. But it was kind of fun piecing the characters together with the right settings; and I didn't feel cheated making the effort -- I felt it was worth it. Throughout the book, however,with all the many characters, there was not a one who I identified with or who I cared about. That made the story a bit harder to get through.

Tomcat FA-18 Superhornets? A 660,000 ton aircraft carrier? The deck area of this monstrous carrier is just four and a half acres! It's more than six times the weight of a regular carrier but no bigger as to deck area. What, it extends three hundred feet down into the water? This story is Mr. Bell's attempt to write a Clancy-type thriller (he even takes Clancy's name in vain!) but the problem is he has none of Clancy's knowledge of his subject. Remember the movie ... Hidden Dragon? The characters in this silly story can do similar stunts. No, Really! And all the goofiness of the 007 movies? That is all here, too. The only good thing about this story is that the narrator is very good. He just needs a better story to narrate.

I'm a big fan of the series. The narrator is great!!! Time flew by while listening.

I have read other books in this series in paperback and did not like them very much - found they were hard to get into, and hard to get through. This was the only one I listened to in audio and I think that made it much more enjoyable: the narrator did some great accents and the characters were quite distinct. I think hearing someone read with a (mostly) correct accent is easier than trying to read the accent into the words you're looking at...

I found that Alex Hawke not being the only main character was a good thing - the other "main" characters were quite entertaining (Stokely) and interesting to find out about (Jet). I wasn't a huge fan of Ambrose, but he did have a role to play. And the Chinese assassin was also quite interesting.

The book is long but is action packed, and the "good guys" save the day by dint of their being so excellent (James Bond anyone)... but this makes for great entertainment. I'd give it 3.5 stars because of how the narration brought the story to life.

Thought provoking plot; likeable characters; quick pace; suffcient drama, action, intrigue and romance ... all in all a delightful additon and certainly an author and series from whom I want and expect more good things.

The story line is non-stop and the characters are interesting. The narrator is fantastic - I can't believe I haven't come across him before. His narration makes the story leap from the page, so to speak.

I liked the kids book he wrote, it had the same reader.

I don't know I tried to listen to it twice. I gave it an hour. It hit my I don't care button and I just turned it off.

I don't even remember.

no

Love Ted Bell and his characters. The time seem to fly by when reading Pirate. I felt the book was well narrated and the story line intricate.

I've not read the print version. The audio edition is brilliantly read by John Shea, though.

The characterization is amazing. Every individual comes to life--particularly as read by John Shea. I think I'd listen to anything read by him.

Stokely Jones. He swears too much for my liking but John Shea reads him a treat.

Both. The political side of the Alex Hawke books certainly made me think. Ted Bell portrays them in such a way that I find I'm listening to the news differently after listening to his books.

I kept expecting Lady Diana Marsh to be a bad guy--maybe she still will be one in a future edition.