Hawke

Alex Hawke, Book 1

De: Ted Bell

Narrado por: John Shea

"Hawke is a fast-paced adventure...truly an exciting listen", says Nelson DeMille. "Rich, spellbinding, and absorbing, Hawke is packed with surprises", raves Clive Cussler. Listeners beware, this stunning, high-caliber thriller is not recommended for the faint of heart.

Lord Alexander Hawke is a direct descendant of the legendary English pirate Blackhawke and highly skilled in the cutthroat's deadly ways himself. While still a boy, on a voyage to the Caribbean, Alex Hawke witnesses an act of unspeakable horror. Hidden in a secret compartment on his father's yacht, Alex sees his parents brutally murdered by three modern-day pirates. It is an event that will haunt him for the remainder of his life.

Now, fully grown and one of England's most decorated naval heroes, Hawke is back in the same Caribbean waters on a secret mission for the American government. A highly experimental stealth submarine, built by the Soviets just before the end of the Cold War, is missing. She carries 40 nuclear warheads and is believed to be in the hands of a very unstable government just 90 miles from the American mainland. Hawke is in a race against time. His mission: Find the deadly sub before a preemptive strike can be launched against the US, and confront the murderous men behind the personal nightmare that haunts him before they find him first.

Featuring breathtaking action, international intrigue, and a hero worthy of the very finest adventure fiction, Hawke heralds the exciting debut of a bold new talent.

©2003 Theodore Bell (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved

Hawke

Hawke is book one of the Alex Hawke series consisting of about a dozen books at this writing. Hawke is a handsome-type A personality-good guy with a small circle of quirky friends that gets bad guys with limited shoot-em-up stuff.

Plot – Book 1: Lord Alexander Hawke, as a seven-year-old boy, witnesses the horrific, brutal murder of his parents while on a Carribean cruise. Fast forward. Hawke is now a black-ops operator for the English government and is working undercover, again in the Carribean, for the United States.

Liked. Narration by John Shea is excellent. A good story that stands alone, no cliff hanger, although there are subsequent adventures to follow. Lots of intrigue and action. Hawke is more a military-experienced Sherlock Holmes than a tough guy. Not so hot. Although Hawke is supposed to be Ted Bell’s version of a Mitch Rapp, Jason Bourne, etc., he is not. Hawke makes me think of a privileged guy that probably went to the best private schools and wears patten-leather shoes.

Written by Ted Bell, narrated by John Shea, 16 hrs and 37 minutes of listening in unabridged audiobook format, released in February 2018 by Brilliance Audio. If you’re looking for an espionage hero who has a touch of British humor and sophistication, worth a look.

James Bond Meats Disney

If you imagine beginning with a larger than life main character who's composition is eschillons outside the scope of conceivable reality, and round it out with a story line so preposterously outlandish that the writers of James Bond and Peter Pan would say "you may have taken it too far" you will be left with a decent representation of this book. Its as if Ted Bell couldn't decide if he wanted to write the next great pirate epic, a fantasy novel for the lifestyles of the rich and famous, or create the next 007 super spy, so he tried to do all of the above. Were it not for the awkward sexual tension and Hollywood-fabulous death scenes, this would be a decent candidate for a child's before-bed story time. If you round it all out with taboo racial and cultural stereotypes, and a poor understanding of military tactics techniques and equipment, you will know exactly what to expect.

With that said you may be wondering why I gave it a 3 star overall rating. Quite simply I found it amusing. The performance is decent and I found that if I could free my mind from the trappings of logic and reason the story was entertaining in it's own quirky ludicrous way. I personally won't complete the series, but at the same time I don't feel as if I have been cheated out of those hours of my that I spent listening to this while sitting in traffic.

Marvelous story with fantastic writing.

Loved this book. Amazing storyline with incredible character development. The narration was absolutely superb with all accents being spot-on.

Great story with an excellent performance

This is a great story. I had are hard time not wanting to just listen to the whole thing all at once.

Totally Unbelievable Entertainment

entertaining story. narration was very good. it was a little unbelievable but it sure was entertaining.

Entertaining

Stereotype and cliche abound and contribute to an engaging read. Happy to recommend it as a fusion action adventure.

Predictable, labored

A great deal of silliness ensued, under the guise of derring-do and high adventure. Amusing if you have time to kill and the patience to listen to wordy cartoonery and relentless misogyny a la cigar-smoke-filled boys clubs.

Hawke! Charming, lovable and gritty to the core.

This Hawke series is destined to be a great one. If the first book represents where Ted Bell could take the character Alex Hawke, I know I will listen to all of them! Bravo.

long

I made it through but it was long for no reason. I would have edited out a lot of the flowery detailed descriptions of irrelevant places and objects

meh...

narrator was meh. no real backstory on main character. just expected to buy into him being a badass.