Alpha

The Black Flagged Series, Book 1

By: Steven Konkoly

Narrated by: John David Farrell

Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's Summary

For fans of Tom Clancy, Brad Thor, and Vince Flynn - a no-bolds-barred, 24-style thriller of conspiracy, assassination, and deception by USA Today and Washington Post best-selling author Steven Konkoly. 

A "Retired" Covert Operative Will Do Anything to Guard His Darkest Secrets....

Daniel Petrovich, formerly part of the Department of Defense's infamous Black Flag Program, protects a secret buried in the deepest vaults of the Pentagon. Blackmailed into executing one final mission for his previous commanding officer, Daniel's carefully constructed "life" rapidly disintegrates into a relentless federal manhunt - and a 24-style race against the clock to suppress the shocking truth about his past. To survive, he'll release the darkest side of his concealed identity. A dark side with few boundaries - and even fewer loyalties.  

Black Flagged lays the foundation for a gritty, high-octane series exploring the serpentine link between covert operations and government agency politics.  

The Black Flagged Series: 

Book 1: Black Flagged: Alpha
Book 2: Black Flagged: Redux
Book 3: Black Flagged: Apex
Book 4: Black Flagged: Vektor
Book 5: Black Flagged: Omega 

Steven's novels are recommended for fans of Brad Thor's Scot Harvath, Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp, Brad Taylor's Pike Logan, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Lee Child's Jack Reacher, Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne, L.T. Ryan's Jack Noble, C.G. Cooper's Daniel Briggs, Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon, and Mark Greaney's Gray Man.                              

©2011 Stribling Media (P)2019 Stribling Media

Lots of Talking, Many Little Details, Not Much Els

This review is for both books, "Alpha" & "Redux," books 1 and 2 in the series.

Books 1 and 2 are so similar that the same review works for both.

I'm not sure what kind of story this book was trying to be, but I don't think it reached it. While I enjoyed "The Jakarta Pandemic" by the same author, this story is rather bland and mostly uninteresting. Though I think the narrator was partly responsbile for this, the writing style is mostly to blame.

Book 1 starts out somewhat perplexing, as it wasn't clear who the good and bad guys are. So many characters introduced, it was hard to keep them straight, particularly when you didn't know if they were important or not. It continues like this for many chapters. I considered stopping and moving to another book, but it never got quite bad enough to quit it. A decision which I later regretted.

Throughout both books, there really never was a main character. I think there was supposed to be a protagonist, but many minor characters had more "screen time" than he did, that it's fair to say there was no main character in this series. For me, this made it difficult to follow the story path.

Both of these books had lots of details on minutia that wasn't needed and made the story drag on. It featured various groups of characters talking endlessly. For example, we're given the name of every street and road that characters see or travel on, nomenclatures for weapons and military hardware, and so on. Usually, hearing about what kind of equipment the character is using is fine with me, but in these books, most of the time it seemed out of place.

Though there weren't many, the action sequences were better than the non-action parts of the story. The author takes too much time to set up the various pieces of the puzzle before getting to the heart of the plot. Many of the action scenes are like the movie Groundhog Day, where you - as the reader/listener - relive the scene several times, each time from someone else's point of view. This was both annoying and boring.

Personally, in book 2, I think the more interesting story would have been the Russian inhabitants perspective in Monchegorsk.

Enjoyed on Audible.

Listened to this book on Audible while exercising. Enjoyed the story and narration, kept my mind occupied following along.

Boring

I couldn't even get through the first chapter. Painfully boring. I wish I would have started listening to it right away so I could have exchanged it.

Masterpiece

Well-woven, fast-paced thriller that has several twists and turns. Worth the read/listen and quite realistic.