Alex

Your standard spy thriller

Revisado: 02-05-24

Shakespeare said that brevity is the soul of wit, and I think the author applied that lesson here, but I believe that the book could have been just a little better had he not taken it quite as much to heart. The story at a high level is fine; it's a fairly generic thriller. I feel the author could have developed his primary and secondary characters better. It would have been nice to have seen them more fleshed out, and I believe it would have added a little opportunity for readers to connect with the characters.

Unfortunately, I think the narrator was the best part of the whole experience. I believe he did a fine job narrating what he was given.

The book was okay. That said, I'm not sure I'm likely to spend more money on them unless I happen to catch them on sale.

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A near blatant Jack Reacher rip off

Revisado: 09-11-23

If you've never read any of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, the book probably isn't half bad. If you have, you quickly realize how unoriginal author Scott Blade is, right down to the mannerisms and motivations driving the main character. The story could be quite good if the author had manufactured a more original central character. Personally, I would skip Reacher light and read the originals.

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The story is fine, but the narration is painful

Revisado: 03-25-22

The story is about what you would expect from a Vince Flynn thriller. Some national security problem, our hero, sent out to investigate and take action as only he can, ultimately dispatching the villain and making things safe again for the United States.

The only problem is that the narration by Ken Kliban turns our protagonist into something whiny and just generally unlikeable. Mitch Rapp has none of the gravitas that comes with narration by George Guidall or even Nick Sullivan's performance from prior novels. Listening to this narration, one would be hard-pressed to believe that any of the exploits previously pulled off by Rapp were from the same character. It made listening to this novel an absolute slog. If I didn't have the time to read a physical copy of the book, I would probably either listen to the abridged version voiced by Armand Schultz or skip this novel entirely as Kliban's performance ruins it.

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I wanted to like it...

Revisado: 06-01-21

But I just couldn't. This was not a tight thriller in the vein of Brad Thor or Vince Flynn. I felt like the author was all over the place with his writing and character point of view. The over all story was just OK. It was painful to finish. Rather than finding myself wanting more, it felt like a chore to complete. While I want to chalk it up to debut novel jitters, I can't see myself picking up future books in the series for fear of feeling that same dread I was experiencing listening to this one.

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esto le resultó útil a 16 personas

A lazy Person of Interest knock off

Revisado: 01-14-21

I get that authors (artists in general) look to other mediums and works for inspiration. This wasn't that. For those of you who saw the CBS show Person of Interest, you will find similarities abound: Ex Special Operations type burned by a rogue element in his agency finds refuge in a northeastern US city, working with a reclusive hacker who wants to use the data gleaned from the NSA that isn't national security related to help those in need. The plot and the writing were just lazy, it was if the author had very few original thoughts of his own, and just altered scripts from the TV show. I don't know if he was a writer on the show, or just thought he could do it better, but he missed the mark.

The narrator was the only bright spot of this experience, and that's not saying much. He was acceptable, but he didn't draw me into the world like other great narrators I've listened to. Maybe it was the material he was working with. I'd be willing to give books he reads another shot, but I will definitely be passing on anything written by the author of this work.

Save your credits and save your money, catch the Person of Interest series on Netflix or CBS instead.

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esto le resultó útil a 9 personas

First person Gray Man...

Revisado: 08-18-20

Ultimately the change in perspective wasn't as bad as I thought despite restarting the book at least three different times because it was tough for me to initially listen in this format. Jay Snyder did a great job bringing the Gray Man to life as usual, and the story itself while heavy was well told with moments of levity. The book made for a great escape. Looking forward to the next adventure.

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Kind of meh....

Revisado: 01-29-20

I really enjoy Hurwitz's Orphan X series, so while waiting for his newest one to come out, I thought I would try something different by the author. Truth be told, had this been my first exposure to his work, I'm not sure I would have tried anything else. Where I feel like the Orphan X books are fairly tight thrillers that pull the audience along, this didn't do it for me. It ended up being a slog to get through to the end.

Scott Brick as usual did his amazing job. Though for a guy who I was pretty sure could make the phone book sound interesting, even his magic was only able to elevate the novel so far. It unfortunately ended up being something less riveting than what I would have normally expected from his narration. I guess it just goes to show that even a great narrator can only do so much with source material that is less than stellar.

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Just pass this entire series right on by.

Revisado: 07-04-19

I listened to the first one and it was OK. Seeing as how that one ended on a cliff hanger, I decided to pick up the second one and see if it was any better. It's not... in fact it might even be worse. The premise of the series seems like a pretty good one, but the authors writing style leaves a ton to be desired. Once again, this is another author who can't seem to decide if he wants to write romance, or a tight thriller. Sadly neither one of which he is doing well. The writing is cheesy and hokey and after nearly 8 hours of this book, I could not bring myself to finish it. In fact between the narrator and the writing, I'm so glad that Audible allows for the return of these books if you don't enjoy them. Save yourself, don't waste your time, and pass this one by.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Not very good.

Revisado: 06-11-19

I wanted to like this... I was hoping for a leading character in the vein of Scot Harvath or Mitch Rapp, hell even a tight thriller written like Vince Flynn or Brad Thor. I got neither. I'm half way through and I can't tell if the author wanted to write a romance novel, or he thought his main character was going to be James Bond. I feel like the narrator did the best with what he had to work with, but all in all, I'm not sure this book is going to be finished. What I suspect though is that I won't be listening to any of the others.

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Just didn't do it for me this time

Revisado: 08-15-18

I'm a big Ted Bell fan, but for some reason this outing didn't do anything for me. I felt like the story didn't move at it's usual clip, and was just too drawn out. If you're new to Ted Bell/Alex Hawke series, don't start here... pick one of his earlier works up instead.

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