The Mackinac Incident

A Thriller

By: Len McDougall

Narrated by: Jonathan Stewart

Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

A survival expert’s skills are put to the test when he is confronted by a team of al-Qaeda-trained terrorists hell-bent on destruction.

Fifteen miles off the coast of New Brunswick, Canada, a Soviet-era diesel submarine offloads four men before being intercepted by a U.S. Navy vessel patrolling the area. The men make up a team of al-Qaeda-trained specialists skilled in the black arts of terrorist warfare and are headed by a man who has billions of dollars in oil money with which to indulge his murderous fantasies. What they do next will determine the fates of thousands of Americans.

Rod Eliot, an aging ex-con turned survival expert, stands between them and one of the most devastating plots ever hatched by the deviated mind of a killer: to blow up the five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge and detonate enough plutonium to contaminate the area for decades. When an encounter with the bomb-toting terrorists occurs deep in the woods of the Upper Peninsula, Eliot finds himself in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with no alternative but to go head-to-head with these murderers. Rod may be the only person who can stop them. But he’s in over his head.

Due to Eliot’s checkered past, law enforcement officials have him pegged for the crimes that unfold over the next few days. Only one, a seasoned FBI agent who is on his trail, thinks Eliot is innocent and is willing to prove it.

©2013 Len McDougall (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Good characters, good twists, good story

This was a very fun book. I loved the main characters. I loved that they were very reluctant and yet stepped up and carried the reader along in their adventure. They were very believable and flawed and multi-layered.
There were just enough twists to keep me guessing and very interested all along the way. I gasped out loud a couple of times when I was really stunned at the direction the story went.
I loved the super specific details around the survival gear and the places in Northern Michigan. Those picky details added a lot of realism to the story.
The one thing I didn't like was the way the author dumped all the details about each of the characters on the reader. It would have been better if I could have gotten to know the characters along the way.
Also, the narrator was pretty bad. He was way too dramatic. He sometimes turned some "edge-of-your-seat" type moments into cheesy, over-dramatic moments because of his narration.
With a couple of flaws. I recommend.

Michiganders will be distracted

Generally an interesting story and performance. The following is just being picky, as the mistakes were distracting.
Performer: Charlevoix and Petoskey were mispronounced.
Author: A Desert Eagle pistol is HUGE and weighs 4.5 pounds. No one walks around with one stuck in their pants.

Narrator does nothing for the story

The story itself was good. Lots of action and tension...but the narrator continued his droning without bringing any of that excitement into his performance. Really a shame...with with a better narrator, this would have been quite enjoyable.