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When a motor launch carrying the USS Ronald Reagan's top brass is attacked, the US vows a swift reprisal. Enter skipper Brick Maxwell and his Roadrunners - the jocks who fly the F/A-18 Super Hornets. Their mission: a deep air strike in Northern Yemen. But their target - the commander who masterminded the attack - has laid a deadly trap for Maxwell and his fellow warriors....
The Gulf War has been over for ten years. It's up to Hornet pilots like Cmdr. Brick Maxwell and his glory-seeking commanding officer, Killer Delancey, to keep the peace by a narrow margin - a margin called the No-Fly Zone. The Iraqi MiG pilots buzz the borders - just close enough to shake up the U.S. Hornets' nest. And the rules of engagement require the Hornets to hold their fire unless the Iraqis show hostile intent.
On his last combat deployment, Lt. Cmdr. James Reece's entire team was killed in an ambush that also claimed the lives of the aircrew sent in to rescue them. But when those dearest to him are murdered on the day of his homecoming, Reece discovers that this was not an act of war by a foreign enemy but a conspiracy that runs to the highest levels of government. Now, with no family and free from the military's command structure, Reece applies the lessons that he's learned in over a decade of constant warfare toward revenge.
Concealed deep within China's inland borders is one of the most secret airplanes ever flown, known as Devil Dragon. She's sleek, unbelievably fast, and mysterious - her test pilots have one mission in mind: make her test flights successful for operational use as soon as possible. Or sooner. But when strange transmissions of pilots are recorded without an aircraft appearing on radar and bizarre cell phone signals are detected at towers hundreds of miles apart, Ford Stevens is asked to take on the most dangerous assignment of his life.
A year and a half into her first term as President of the United States, Libby Paulsen is in a world of trouble. Her controversial agenda has placed her in a doomsday clash with a right wing cabal led by an enigmatic Air Force general. The conspirators will stop at nothing - including assassination - to remove Libby Paulsen from office. When the cabal targets Air Force One, Libby's Presidency - and her life - rest in the hands of a maverick pilot named Pete Brand, a man with whom the President shares a long-smoldering secret.
Cmdr. Brick Maxwell's best friend, Raz Rasmussen, was shot down on the first night of the first Gulf War. Though his body was never recovered, he was declared KIA and forgotten. Years later, his remarried widow receives evidence that Raz might be alive. She asks Maxwell to learn the truth. Maxwell is thwarted by the CIA until his old enemy, Col. Jamal Al-Fasr, is captured in a battle on the Iranian border. When Al-Fasr offers to exchange himself for an American POW, Maxwell finds himself thrust into a web of intrigue and a shocking betrayal.
When a motor launch carrying the USS Ronald Reagan's top brass is attacked, the US vows a swift reprisal. Enter skipper Brick Maxwell and his Roadrunners - the jocks who fly the F/A-18 Super Hornets. Their mission: a deep air strike in Northern Yemen. But their target - the commander who masterminded the attack - has laid a deadly trap for Maxwell and his fellow warriors....
The Gulf War has been over for ten years. It's up to Hornet pilots like Cmdr. Brick Maxwell and his glory-seeking commanding officer, Killer Delancey, to keep the peace by a narrow margin - a margin called the No-Fly Zone. The Iraqi MiG pilots buzz the borders - just close enough to shake up the U.S. Hornets' nest. And the rules of engagement require the Hornets to hold their fire unless the Iraqis show hostile intent.
On his last combat deployment, Lt. Cmdr. James Reece's entire team was killed in an ambush that also claimed the lives of the aircrew sent in to rescue them. But when those dearest to him are murdered on the day of his homecoming, Reece discovers that this was not an act of war by a foreign enemy but a conspiracy that runs to the highest levels of government. Now, with no family and free from the military's command structure, Reece applies the lessons that he's learned in over a decade of constant warfare toward revenge.
Concealed deep within China's inland borders is one of the most secret airplanes ever flown, known as Devil Dragon. She's sleek, unbelievably fast, and mysterious - her test pilots have one mission in mind: make her test flights successful for operational use as soon as possible. Or sooner. But when strange transmissions of pilots are recorded without an aircraft appearing on radar and bizarre cell phone signals are detected at towers hundreds of miles apart, Ford Stevens is asked to take on the most dangerous assignment of his life.
A year and a half into her first term as President of the United States, Libby Paulsen is in a world of trouble. Her controversial agenda has placed her in a doomsday clash with a right wing cabal led by an enigmatic Air Force general. The conspirators will stop at nothing - including assassination - to remove Libby Paulsen from office. When the cabal targets Air Force One, Libby's Presidency - and her life - rest in the hands of a maverick pilot named Pete Brand, a man with whom the President shares a long-smoldering secret.
Cmdr. Brick Maxwell's best friend, Raz Rasmussen, was shot down on the first night of the first Gulf War. Though his body was never recovered, he was declared KIA and forgotten. Years later, his remarried widow receives evidence that Raz might be alive. She asks Maxwell to learn the truth. Maxwell is thwarted by the CIA until his old enemy, Col. Jamal Al-Fasr, is captured in a battle on the Iranian border. When Al-Fasr offers to exchange himself for an American POW, Maxwell finds himself thrust into a web of intrigue and a shocking betrayal.
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.
For a moment Wilson froze and looked at the white-helmeted pilot who sat high on the nose of the colossal fighter. Across the small void, he saw the pilot's eyes peer over his mask. Dark, chilling eyes. Wilson kicked right rudder to slide closer and jam any chance for a bandit gunshot. When the bandit pulled all the way over, almost on its back but in control, he cursed in frustration at what he knew was coming next.
Trey DeBolt is a young man at the crest of life. His role as a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Alaska offers him a rewarding job and limitless adventure. Then a tragic accident alters his life: during a harrowing rescue, his helicopter goes down. Severely injured, DeBolt awakens in a seaside cabin in Maine, thousands of miles from where the accident occurred. His lone nurse lets slip that he has been officially declared dead, lost in the crash. Back in Alaska, however, Coast Guard investigator Shannon Lund uncovers evidence that DeBolt might still be alive. Her search quickly becomes personal, but before she can intervene, chaos erupts.
Americans are fascinated by the undeniable mystique of the elite world of Navy fighter pilots. In Bogeys and Bandits, Robert Gandt takes listeners on a thrilling ride in the FA-18 Hornet, one of the fastest, sleekest, and deadliest aircraft in the world. Gandt lived and worked with several pilots learning to fly the Hornet: the identical twins from Middle America; the computer nerd with a penchant for speed; the grandson of a Tuskegee Airman, trying to live up to a proud legacy; and two women dealing with the post-Tailhook world of the Navy.
Court Gentry is known as The Gray Man - a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible, and then fading away. And he always hits his target. But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness. Now, he is going to prove that for him, there's no gray area between killing for a living-and killing to stay alive.
It is fall. CIA analyst Jack Ryan, historian and former Marine, is vacationing in London with his wife and young daughter. Suddenly, right before his eyes, a terrorist group launches its deadly attack. Instinctively, he dives forward to break it up, and is shot. It is not until he wakes up in the hospital that he learns whose lives he has saved - the Duke and Duchess of Kent.
Sure to rank as one of the greatest aviation memoirs ever written, Viper Pilot is an Air Force legend's thrilling eyewitness account of modern air warfare. From 1986 to 2006, Lt. Col. Dan Hampton was a leading member of the Wild Weasels, the elite Air Force fighter squadrons whose mission is recognized as the most dangerous job in modern air combat. Weasels are the first planes sent into a war zone, flying deep behind enemy lines purposely seeking to draw fire from surface-to-air missiles and artillery. They must skillfully evade being shot down - and then return to destroy the threats, thereby making the skies safe for everyone else to follow.
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.
Two years ago, Darren Street made a name for himself as the man who rooted out corruption in the district attorney's office. Now the hotheaded young lawyer is in the public eye yet again - this time, accused of murder. Jalen Jordan retained Street for what seemed to be a minor traffic violation, but when evidence turned up linking Jordan to the death of two boys, Street wanted out of the case.
The USS Kentucky - a Trident ballistic missile submarine carrying a full complement of 192 nuclear warheads - sets out on a routine cruise. Not long after it reaches the open sea, however, the Kentucky receives a launch order. After receiving that launch order, it is cut off from all counter orders and disappears into the Pacific while it makes the eight-day transit to the launch site. What the Kentucky's crew doesn't know is that those launch orders didn't come from the US government.
Tommy Carmellini is sent to post guard duty at a farmhouse in Virginia's remote Blue Ridge Mountains, where top government operatives are debriefing a star defector: the ultimate KGB insider, a man with records on every operation and every dirty trick the shadowy intelligence agency has ever run, from Lenin to Putin.
Shattered by the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, the U.S. is rebuilding its fleet while the badly damaged Submarine Division Seven holds the line against the Japanese Navy. The loss of even one more submarine could be devastating - and every enemy ship that slips through means more lives lost. But Lieutenant Commander Jack Tremain is determined to whip into shape a boat that's returned from a hellish patrol and make the Japanese pay - even if this is his last mission ever.
Cmdr. Brick Maxwell and his F/A-18 squadron are flying cover for the president of Taiwan's jetliner when it is blown out of the sky. Other than a slight shimmer of light preceding the catastrophe, there's no visible cause for the explosion.
But Maxwell suspects that China has stolen the plans for the Black Star - a virtually invisible super stealth fighter. Now a full-scale war is inevitable - unless Maxwell and a team of commandos can hijack the state-of-the-art killing machine. But with a beautiful defector of dubious loyalties guiding them, the mission can take a wrong turn at any moment.
Where does Black Star rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I listen to audiobooks to take me away on an adventure while I pedal through the Texas heat. This was a great audio journey.
What did you like best about this story?
Stolen stealth technology, an invisible fighter dogfight, Taiwan/China revolutionary war, and the usual Robert Gandt cast of characters--brought to life by narrator Thomas Block. This is another excellent modern warfare adventure on and off the decks of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan. Climb aboard, strap in, Hold on tight, and don’t forget your UV goggles.
What about Thomas Block’s performance did you like?
I like the consistency Thomas Block brings to Robert Gandt's series.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
1V1 Stealth v Stealth aerial dogfight.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
I have read a lot of late. The storyteller was pretty good, the story very good.
Mr Gandt again delivers an imaginative story in the action aviation genre
I particular rally enjoyed the fighter scenes the description does capture the Realism of dogfighting.
Tom Block is a gifted narrator