Zero Option

De: P. T. Deutermann

Narrado por: Dick Hill

When FBI agent David Stafford finds himself on the Bureau's "out" list for publicly blowing the whistle on a corrupt colleague, he receives a low-profile assignment to investigate an Atlanta military base, where someone is suspected of auctioning off equipment without authorization.

Now a cylinder containing an extremely hazardous biochemical weapon is missing, and Stafford is on the trail of the thief - traveling from the hills of Georgia to the halls of the Pentagon - in a race to recover the weapon before it falls into enemy hands.

With strong characters and a plot that is frighteningly real, Deutermann's Zero Option is his most commercial novel yet, reminiscent of Tom Clancy and Nelson DeMille.

©1998 P. T. Deutermann (P)1998 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

it's an ok story

I found the main character in the story to be a little on the weak side obviously dealing with an injury but you want your heroes or your centerpieces to be strong and decisive not weak and vulnerable other than that the story was was okay the the whole mental telepathy thing kind of got lost in the wash from the idea that the Army would lose a chemical weapon is almost unfathomable.

Excellent Book

It keeps you in suspense and how it can change a person with or without belief.
The mind is truly a complex organ and all working differently. Yet siblings can be brought up together but you the mind set is so different with little to no overlap at times. Narrator is great, played various voices.

Exceptionally well done.

Extremely well thought out plot with unexpected twists and turns. Sticks to the rule of thumb of only one incredible thing per story. Characters very well fleshed out and with believable motivations. Exciting and entertaining and informative all at the same time. Highly recommended!

Great Story!

This story is better than most, especially the second half. The author, P.T. Deutermann, understands the operations of D.C. bureaucrats and uses his knowledge to build tension. He does the tension scenes very well, especially towards the end. This work is the author’s stab at soft science fiction. It’s not bad! The sci-fi input is brief and it works. (No hard sci-fi like spaceships or phasers.)

Entertaining story

I like all the major characters in this book - good and bad. The story gradually introduces the major players and then adds a good story with enough suspense and action to keep me interested. I enjoyed this book; however, my favorite books by this author are Hunting Season and Darkside.

Impossible to put down

I've recently developed a highly addictive and costly habit: P. T. Deutermann's books! This particular book is especially addictive. I couldn't do a damn thing while I listened to it almost non-stop!

But as addictive habits go, and I am a weak soul, I will now buy another P. T. Deutermann book to feed my addiction.

By the way, as I have pointed out in other reviews, I like to point out some little item the author throws in a story from previous books, such as "fat pill". This time, it' "going to baby Jesus."

Exciting and Scary!

What if a canister of military chemical/biological weaponry got "lost", and put up for sale on the black market? What if you were an army general responsible for that canister? How could you find the missing canister, while still keeping the whole snafu secret? In "Zero Option", Deutermann poses these questions in a literary scenario ... and just about scares us out of our skins.

Dick Hill, as always, does an excellent job of voicing all the characters in this terrifyingly plausible novel. In a way, we listeners have an advantage over the print-readers in a novel like this, because a good narrator -- using his repertoire of voices and inflections -- distinguishes for us from the get-go the good guys from the bad guys. Listen carefully to Dick Hill's vocal inflections for each character, and you will see what I mean.

Should you purchase "Zero Option"? That depends ... Do you like military thrillers? Deutermann is not for everyone. I confess that his stories sometimes go a bit over my head when he gets into Chain-of-Command terminology and entanglements. Someone who has served in the armed forces or worked in the military would probably understand these allusions better than I do. However, Deutermann weaves such intricate, fascinating plots that I eagerly gobble up his novels, despite my military naivety. If an author could be said to have a distinguishing trade-mark, then Deutermann's trade-mark would look like this: All the characters in a convoluted plot are trying to figure out what the other characters are conniving. Through immaculate logic and deduction, they all come to exactly the wrong conclusions. Acting on those conclusions, they bring on near-cataclysmic disaster. The good guy, of course, saves the world at the last minute. Does that appeal to you? If so, then yes: Buy "Zero Option".

IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR

a good listen, I recommend this one. I was up all night...listening! Unpredictable. INTERESTING. EXCELLENT!

Deutermann is a 10

After working my way through Deutermann's Cam Richter series, I was a little nervous to try out a new protagonist. I should have known better. Deutermann writes a great thriller -- whether or not Cam and his pooches are involved.

Another exciting story with a twist

Once again we see an exciting story where the "hero" is dealing not only with a mystery but with convoluted government bureaucracy. Another book I had a hard time "putting down", listening even in bed.