Frank Bowen Conspiracy Thriller Series: Books 1-3

By: Jay Tinsiano

Narrated by: Chris MacDonnell

Length: 20 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

Enter the humidity, feel the cold steel....

Frank Bowen is pulled into a conspiracy that will change his life forever and throw him neck-deep into the dark world of espionage, murder, and terrorism.

The first three thrillers in the Frank Bowen Conspiracy Thriller series collected in one gripping volume: False Flag, Pandora Red, and Ghost Order.

If you enjoy conspiracy, ruthless assassins, and nonstop action, then you’ll love the Frank Bowen.  

False Flag: A Frank Bowen Conspiracy Thriller, Book 1 - 1991:

A plan to destabilise Hong Kong is emerging; the key players are being put into place, the wheels are in motion and innocent people will die. An international conspiracy thriller by Jay Tinsiano, False Flag spans South-east Asia, with twists and turns that leave every character in question.

Pandora Red: Frank Bowen Conspiracy Thriller, Book 2:

Frank Bowen's mission is to find a GCHQ whistleblower but in doing so unwittingly risks everything, including his own family's safety.

Ghost Order: Frank Bowen Conspiracy Thriller, Book 3:

Frank Bowen attempts to piece together a fractured life at home but finds himself pulled back into the dark state once again. Only, this time, he’s playing both sides. Hired by John Rhodes, founding father of the Liberatus movement, his mission is to escort a valuable asset to South America. Then the spectre of Carl Paterson emerges and Frank finds he has to work once again with his old agency, Ghost 13.

©2019 Jay Tinsiano (P)2019 Jay Tinsiano

A great bundle!

The best thing about reading the first three books back to back is that you can really appreciate the way the main character, Frank Bowen, is growing. How he is evolving, getting better at what he does.

Frank Bowen is a great character, interesting and easy to understand, the plots on these books are very well done, and the writing is engaging. A great choice for those who love thrillers.

Chris MacDonnell does a great job with the narration.

Great spy thriller set! Great intrigue!

Frank Bowen Conspiracy Thriller Series: Books 1-3 by Jay Tinsiano and narrated by Chris MacDonnell is an audible book set I requested and the review is voluntary. These books are very intriguing and exciting with plenty of action and adventure. After the first book I wondered why Frank would even trust his guys to give him another assignment! Book two he ended up in yet another predicament because of them! Ugh! Each book is a few years apart so maybe he forgot but I don't think I would! I don't want to tell you why to spoil it! The third book was kind of payback or karma, lol! I don't normally read or listen to shovels but I am trying to expand my horizons! I truly enjoyed these books.

Book1, False Flag, was a very intense politically thriller about a man set up as a terrorist while in Hong Kong. He was working for for the UK government at the time. The UK government is after him and the Hong Kong government. Soon Lots of governments have his picture. There is a lot of twists and turns, action, adventure, suspense, and a slight touch of romance in here. Fast paced.

Book 2 is Pandora Red and it is just as much a suspenseful thriller as book one. There are secret files that show how the UK is spying on it's people. Everyone wants the file and will do anything to get it. It is the UK version of the Snowden files! Government never admits wrong doing and accuses the whistleblower. But the story here is totally different! Wild and action packed! Our guy must quit trusting his MI6 friend!

Book 3, Ghost Order, deals with transporting an American from point A to B, no airplane, and keep him alive. There are a lot of people wanting him. They don't care how many or who the kill to get him. I liked this one best.

This was a great set and I probably wouldn't have read it if I hadn't made the effort to expand my wings!
The narration was wonderful, just like a British spy novel should sound in my head! Lol!

Predictable

I struggled to finish listening to Frank Bowen Conspiracy Thrillers. I feel it has been written before. There were too many characters for me.

I did enjoy the descriptions of all the places Frank Bowen traveled to during his escapades. Jimmy Duffy was one of my favorite characters. He was funny and I believe a great friend to Frank. Nero was evil just as his name sounds.

The story did pick up a bit in the middle but then I felt the ending was abruptly short. And all so predictable.

Chris MacDonnell was a good narrator for this book especially with his accent.

It gets better

*****CONTAINS SPOILERS******

Book 1 - False Flag
I found this story a bit hard to follow. There were so many characters and organizations to keep track of that I really did not get who's who and who is good or bad. However, it was how Frank Bowen got himself into the line of work and sets the basis for the rest of the series. If I read this book on it's own, i think I would have given it only 2 stars, but luckily I got the box set, and the stories do get better.

Book 2 - Pandora Red
This was another complicated book with lots of organizations and characters to try and keep track of. I liked the Liberatus angle that was added, but it sort of got washed out by all the other things happening in the book. I also started off really disliking Frank, pretending to do everything for his family, but actually just being absent when he is at home with all the "I work hard so when I'm at home I just want a beer and relax" stuff. It made it a bit hard to believe that he was so concerned for the well being of his family when they were kidnapped. Maybe that's just me though.

Book 3 - Ghost Order
This was by far my favourite book and definitely saved the series. On it's own, I think it would be a solid 4 star read. The author has found his rhythm and this book was less involved (not as many organizations/characters) but at the same time more focused and it made it a lot easier to become absorbed by the story in stead of trying to constantly figure out who is who. I would like to see more stories involving Liberatus.

About the narrator
When I finished listening to the last book, I really thought "wow, this narrator was really good" and gave him 4 stars for his performance, but then as I typed this reveiw I realised that I really hated the way he made Maria sound. So nasally and nagging all the time that you actually dislike her immensely. I also listened to the audiobook at 1.35x because the narrator's pace was way too slow for this type of adventure thriller. So unfortunately I dropped his score down.

Action packed 3 for one

Let me start off with this is not my normal genre of books. Looked interesting so I picked them up as a good value.
I am guessing that was why but I had a real hard time getting involved in this series.
The first book turned out to be a pretty good story that I was involved in by the end. Slow to start but finished well.
After learning who was who in the first book, I expected to follow the second book better. That was not the case. This book was hard to follow from beginning to end. Way to many twists and turns and jumping around for my taste. Almost could not finish it.
The third book got better. Still not as good as the first but worth the read.
Overall, I liked the series but think it could have been better.
For the most part the narration was good. Voice fit the characters and good variation between characters.

If this is your kind of story, there is no better way to get into a series than a box set.

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

The Start of a Great Series

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Frank Bowen was just a regular guy that broke up with his girlfriend and traveled the world until he was used to execute some terrorist plot. As soon as he was hired to do some work from what I thought were some shady characters, that's when the action really started. Some of the story seemed like Frank had a lot of luck on his side as he was getting away from an assassin.
Eventually, the right people noticed something not right with Frank's situation and that's when everything started to wrap up in False Flag. I thought there was something off with Maria and still think so; I'm thinking she might be playing a long game on Frank, but only time will tell.

Pandora Red was an okay story. Frank gets hired and trained as a spy and by the end of the story he's on his own again. With a mission to surveil a target that has sensitive information, he's given no choice but to rescue the target, evade capture, and save his family that was kidnapped by Russians. By the end of the book, his agency lets him go for turning over sensitive info on a USB drive to a news agency and fights to get his family back from the Russians after Liberatus leaks the info. Liberatus reminds me of Wiki-Leaks.

Ghost Order has Frank separated from his girlfriend and kids and having to work another job in hopes of getting his family back. We see Liberatus again in this book and I feel like we will continue to see them in future stories. Again, Frank has to fight to get back to his family.

A lot of the stories remind me of some of the movies about the same topic; Mission Impossible, The Recruit, etc.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes the secret/rogue agent genre.

Like watching syrup flow uphill in January . . .

Really was just not my cup of tea. I love mystery thrillers, but found precious little mystery or thrills to be had in this box set. Had a really hard time staying awake. VERY slow paced story development with way too much time spent on the why's and what's of various political groups. By the time the description of what they believed and what they were trying to do was over, I just didn't care anymore. By my ear, these are real yawners but might be worth getting if you having trouble falling asleep at night. Just my opinion - your mileage may vary . . .

An entertaining set of conspiracy thrillers

The Frank Bowen Conspiracy Thrillers is a box set with three entertaining books about an ordinary seeming man who gets involved in intrigue and becomes a sort of James Bond like character as a result.

The narrator does a good job bringing the books to life.

I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Good, but mixed feelings about the set

As many said, reading the set helps a lot to see the grow of the main character, Frank. He seems always like a reluctant agent/spy that can't seem to stop doing what he deep down like, in the end.
One of the things that I liked most is the fact that he ends up getting married and have children's through out the books, as they are separated in time by no small amount. I can't recall a "spy" to have a family like this and the story to portrait their relation like in this stories.
About the books themselves... I agree that the first book is too complicated in terms of characters and organizations. Even though the narrator does a truly fantastic job I would prefer to have read this first one. The second book theme is about government control and inside whistleblower like Edward Snowden. Finally the third is the most engaging and fast paced.
The thrillers are great and what I think may be preventing the readers to fully engage is the fact that there are sometimes changes in points of view that are too long and plot points that makes you like and dislike many of the characters at the same time. You don't get a clear hero or bad guy - not even Frank, for that mater. Perfect for those that like those type of features, though.

Awesome collection of compelling thrillers...

FALSE FLAG (BOOK 1)
I began this book thinking I would just go through a couple of chapters before bed – I was SO wrong. I was hooked from the beginning and had to keep going until I finished the last sentence. This is a great story that clips along as a brisk pace, it is filled with suspense and there are such interesting characters to fuel the action. The lead character, Frank, comes into some money and decides to take a bit of time to travel. What follows is an adventure filled with conspiracy, action, and first-rate globe-trotting excitement that will forever change the course of Frank’s life.

PANDORA RED (BOOK 2)
This is the second Frank Bowen thriller and it takes place about 8 years after the events of False Flag. During the intervening years, Frank has trained relentlessly for his field position with MI6 and had some adventures about which he reminisces briefly in this story which takes him to Central America and Cuba as he and his team search for a rogue data analyst codenamed Pandora. This analyst has uncovered a vast governmental conspiracy centered around covert intelligence-gathering and surveillance of the general public. At immense risk to her personal safety and at the cost of her career, this dauntless young woman makes a copy of the top-secret files outlining the plans for instituting this surveillance and makes a run for it. Reminiscent of the Edward Snowden saga, this is a fast-paced thriller featuring a lone whistleblower on the run whilst trying to get information to the masses about the government-sanctioned infringement of civil liberties and personal privacy. Our hero, Frank, is dispatched with a team of MI6 agents to recover the data and the analyst but nothing goes as planned and the adventure, danger, and suspense fuel a wild and harrowing ride to the very end.

GHOST ORDER (BOOK 3)
Jay Tinsiano gives us another fast-paced, action-filled thriller with Frank Bowen as the lead character. Rest assured that when Frank is called into play, the assignment, no matter how straightforward it may seem, will always go off the rails with high adventure and plenty of twists and turns to hold your attention from start to finish. In this story, Frank is tasked with escorting an asset from one location to another. That sounds easy enough, but the journey that follows is filled with unexpected dangers, intrigue, and players whose loyalties are not what they seem.

The narrator, Chris MacDonnell, gave a stellar performance in all three of these stories. His accent adds to the atmosphere of these spy thrillers but, additionally, he offers the listener a brilliant repertoire of vocal characterizations for the various individuals in the stories and he keeps the pace and cadence of his delivery consistent with the situations in which the characters find themselves. Well-written and beautifully narrated – what more can we ask for?

While I did purchase a copy of each of these books, I was provided with a copy of the audiobook collection of all 3 books by the author and I am voluntarily offering this honest and unbiased review.

Not a smash hit but enjoyable

Book1
Really struggled to get into this book - it was just so slow with all of the action only towards the end of the book. Also did not like the narrator’s slow pace; Once i sped it up a bit it was better.
Book2
Really started to like this unconventional hero that is not a superhuman but a normal person wanting to do good and protect his family. Lots of action.
Book3
More of the same but liked the twist at the end. Fast paced and easy to listen to. Enjoyed it.

Stunning, complex, absorbing!

I’ve been totally absorbed in the world of Frank Bowen and his journey from an average Joe, to a well trained agent and killer! The trilogy was written by Jay Tinslano.
Book One, False Flag, takes us through the story of an ordinary lad enjoying life as a globetrotting backpacker. In his innocence, he gets caught up in political plots and double dealing and it’s only his common sense, intelligence and quick wit that gets him through it in one piece.
Book Two, Pandora Red. Frank has become a trained secret operative for MI6 and enjoys the thrill and excitement of the dangerous world he lives in..... at least until it strikes back, to close for comfort ! Is the price he’s asked to pay to high?
BookThree, Ghost Order. Where do you go from here? When you’ve decided to consider the direction you’re life is taking, but you need the money ..... is the answer one more contract? Perhaps the most deadly and complex of his career? Testing his ability to out think and out manoeuvre the bad guys and stay alive to complete the mission....but just who are the bad guys?
Phew, the end of this trilogy has left me shell shocked. Wondering where do Frank and I go from here?!
I received this book set as a gift and am very grateful that I did.

Thriller

The narration of Chris MacDonnell was perfect for this boxset

This is a great listen very intriguing . I was on the edge of my seat .
Lots of action with unexpected twists and turns. A good spy story, great baddies . I really enjoyed