Any Means Necessary

A Luke Stone Thriller, Book 1

By: Jack Mars

Narrated by: K.C. Kelly

Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's Summary

When nuclear waste is stolen by jihadists in the middle of the night from an unguarded New York City hospital, the police, in a frantic race against time, call in the FBI. Luke Stone, head of an elite, secretive department within the FBI, is the only man they can turn to. Luke realizes right away that the terrorists' aim is to create a dirty bomb, that they seek a high-value target, and that they will hit it within 48 hours.

A cat and mouse chase follows, pitting the world's most savvy government agents versus its most sophisticated terrorists. As Agent Stone peels back layer after layer, he soon realizes he is up against a vast conspiracy, and that the target is even more high value than he could have imagined - leading all the way to the President of the United States.

With Luke framed for the crime, his team threatened and his own family in danger, the stakes could not be higher. But as a former Special Forces commando, Luke has been in tough positions before, and he will not give up until he finds a way to stop them - using any means necessary.

Twist follows twist as one man finds himself up against an army of obstacles and conspiracies, pushing even the limits of what he can handle, and culminating in a shocking climax.

©2015 Jack Mars (P)2016 Jack Mars

um ... not remotely like Mitch Rapp

I am guessing those reviews are by the publisher. The book isnt bad and neither is the narration, but it might as well be a different genre than Vince Flynn and Mitch.

No Mitch Rapp!

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Luke Stone is a joke! Ex-special forces commander?...gosh I hope not. He can't even fight his own fights without help from Ed which makes him about as intimidating as Elmo on Sesame Street. Story line was good but who wants a weakling for a supposed hero? He gets no respect from anyone-one yet he's supposed to be some bad ass SF guy?

If you’ve listened to books by Jack Mars before, how does this one compare?

First and last Luke Stone story.

What three words best describe K.C. Kelly’s performance?

Very Good Narration

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Any Means Necessary?

All scenes which define Luke as weak and disrespected; which are a lot!

Nice liberal story with a tough guy

Typical depiction of War Mongering Republicans willing to start WW3 at all costs. Interesting tough guy willing to shoot people in the head, but with a soft dove heart. Can't someone pick an evil enemy other than big oil companies or the Pentagon. This story is NO Mitch Rapp!!!

Not my favorite.

About halfway through I was struggling and I did not know if I could finish.

No Depth Reads Like a Comic Book

Wasted my time and money with this book. There is no real plot, it reads like a comic book. The characters are all one dimensional in a book that has no real content and goes no place. Makes me wonder how some of these books get published. Buyer beware.

What A Stupid Story

What disappointed you about Any Means Necessary?

Story, Narration. Everything

What do you think your next listen will be?

Anything other than from this author or this narrator

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Stupid "southern drawl" for every character.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

NONE!!!

Any additional comments?

I appreciate everyone having different political views. To break it down in this book, all republicans are evil and war loving a**holes and every democrat is a perfect person, who loves all and makes every right decision. It isn't a book, it is an agenda with ridiculous action scenes, and a nonsensical plot . By the way, the narration was like listening to fingernails against a chalk board.

What a Piece of Trash

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A total re-write with a different narrator.

Has Any Means Necessary turned you off from other books in this genre?

No, but it turned me off from Jack Mars and Luke Stone.

How could the performance have been better?

Tell your narrators to do away with the sound effects for one. Two, refuse to read such dribble.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Anger that I wasted my time and money.

Any additional comments?

Can I get my money back. I would like to program my Audible account to completely shut down my computer if I ever click on one of his books again,

Who is your fact checker? Entertaining though

I'm willing to suspend reality when I listen to a book, but this book really goes over the top. It was an entertaining book and I listened to the end, but I kept thinking, "Oh come on! Really?!!" And then I got to the part of the book where they implied, then actually said that a man became radioactive after being exposed to radioactive material. Really?? Just FYI, Plutonium may be radioactive. I'm no physicist, but there are probably other elements that are radioactive. But humans don't become radioactive. They may become sick or die. But they don't become radioactive unless they actually ingest some radioactive material. That part of the book just made me shake my head and made me thing the rest of the book was total crap.

terrible

decent concept poor execution
author has no concept of character development.
no clever repartee EVER
political perspective of a 13 year old
no research, poorly excecuted in every way.
even names are dumb .
zero creativity cliche after cliche
it hurts to listen

Ok story, narrator was rough

The story was ok, but the dialogue seemed awkward throughout. Lots of conversations felt like they were over explaining things for the benefit of the reader rather than natural sounding conversations. Also, kind of a broad brush type of plot rather than any characters you can relate to or any real details in the plot. Not horrible, but not first rate either.

The narrator was hard to listen to. His voice was ok, but he constantly sounded like a mom talking to a small child. Or, my grandma talking to her dog. On top of that, he apparently has no concept of punctuation. The way he read some of the simplest sentences made them sound like they had two extra periods, and a semicolon. Very. difficult to. listen to for. Very; Long.

Fast-paced American 'thriller'.

The pace and sequencing is engaging. The rest is a cliched American political thriller, with a narrative that endeavours to be a little more fresh, and succeeds due to the limited 'America the Great' commentary. Set over a short period of a few days, there's little time for character development, but it's not required and the nod to an element of backstory will satisfy fans of this genre.

The narration was well-shaded, and I appreciated the constraint of the 'acting' - was low-key rather than overly dramatic. A nice listen.

A great political adventure

A good book that is well written with a super audio reading. So believable in these troubled times. Cannot wait for follow up story.

First book by Jack Mars that I have listened to

I really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading more by this author. The story was well paced and held my interest all the way through. The narrator was very good which enhanced the listening. Usually the only thing that puts me off an audiobook is the narrator. In this case I hope the same person is chosen to narrate all of the coming books by Jack Mars.

Finally!

I have finally found another author who is right up there with the other interesting, formidable, nail biting authors that I love to read! You know who they are:-
From Forsythe, through Clancey up to Lee Child and Patterson, and all the others in between.

Not quite Jason Bourne, not quite Jack Reacher, shades of Jack Ryan, shades of John Pullen, shades also of Mitch Rapp & Will Robie. All the leading men you love, right here!

And a story that is novel and audacious! I'm buying more credits to get the next book now! I just can't wait!

Try it - enjoy!

Gripping

Absolutely loved this. Found myself going for longer drives because I didn’t want to stop listening!!
Reminiscent of one of my favourite TV series of the past - 24. Wish they’d bring it back!! In the meantime I’ll work my way through this series and other Jack Mars novels!