Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #289917 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

Best Thor novel
Brad Thor's "Takedown" focuses on the conflict between Islamic extremists and their enemies in the west. Mohammed bin Mohammed is al-Qaeda's master bombmaker as well as the head of its committee on weapons of mass destruction. An American covert action team kidnaps Mohammed from his hiding place in Somalia and brings him to a secret location in New York City. Abdul Ali, a man implicated in a number of terrorist attacks and high-profile assassinations, is determined to get Mohammed back. He enlists the aid of a villainous dwarf known as the Troll to put together an extraction team to rescue Mohammed.

Meanwhile, thirty-six year old Scot Harvath, a former Navy Seal and counterterrorism operative for the Department of Homeland Security, crosses the border into Montreal to nab Sayed Jamal, an Algerian-born terrorist. Although Scot is a patriot, he has grown tired of the red tape and secrecy that hamper his ability to carry out his job. In addition, Scot would like to have a personal life and start a family someday, but as long as he continues to travel all over the world on highly secret missions, his time will never be his own.

Soon, terrorists stage a series of attacks on the infrastructure of New York City. Besides claiming many innocent lives, these attacks insure that all of the major emergency services are tied up with search and rescue missions. Meanwhile, Abdul Ali and his hired band of fierce Chechens are busy with a mission of their own--to find the place where Mohammed bin Mohammed is being held and bring him to safety.

This novel features enough explosions, weaponry, and chase scenes to please any action-adventure junkie. The villains are merciless fiends who commit unspeakable acts in an effort to bring the United States government to its knees. The author implies that America is currently losing the war on terror. As long as there is bureaucratic infighting and too much emphasis on the rights of suspected terrorists, Thor seems to be saying, America will be unable to defeat al-Qaeda. The book's epigraph is "exitus acta probat": "the ends justify the means."

"Takedown" has an enormous cast of characters, including former soldiers who accompany Harvath on his quest to stop Abdul Ali. One of them, Tracy Hastings, was maimed when a bomb that she was trying to defuse in Iraq accidentally detonated. Tracy and Scott form a bond that soon blossoms into romance. At almost four hundred pages, the book goes on a bit too long and is so frantically busy that there is little room for character development. However, its courageous heroes and "ripped from the headlines" plot will undoubtedly earn "Takedown" a receptive audience among fans of contemporary thrillers.

Brilliant Islamic thriller
Thriller authors generally need a real world enemy to wrap their story around. Few are like Michael Chrichton and Lee Child who invent everything. No, for most thriller authors, it is the threat of the moment that matters. Nazism and Communism have had their day although some horror writers still use them, James Herbert and Sean Hutson, but today belongs to radical Islam. You only have to read the 18th Brigade, Blister or the Soft Target thrillers by Conrad Jones to realise how some thriler writers can bring contempory Islamic issues into violent action fantasy.

Brad Thor has cranked out several very good thrillers, but "The Last Patriot" is one of his best.

Former Navy SEAL, Secret Service agent and Presidential troubleshooter Scot (with one "t") Harvath is in Paris with his girlfriend Tracy Hastings, who is still recovering from injuries received in her job as a Naval demolitions specialist. Scot observes a car being stolen and another car pulling into the vacated parking space. His intuitive sense of action is aroused and he pulls Tracy away from the cafe where they were sitting. Passing a bookstore, a stranger in a hurry bumps into them and starts crossing the street. Scot senses trouble and covers the stanger with his own body as a car bomb goes off.

Borrowing liberally from Dan Brown's "The DaVinci Code", Thor plunges Harvath into a labybrinth of clues, assasins, plots and counter-plots as a search for the prophet Mohammed's rumored last revelation which has the potential to change the nature of Islam.

The action never stops. A former CIA assassin, Matthew Dowd, now a dedicated convert to Islam and a stone-cold killer is murdering his way toward the secret. The President's man is looking for the secret. Soon the CIA and FBI are involved. Thomas Jefferson's 1805 war against the Barbary pirates is invoked as other aspects of Jefferson's wide ranging interests and genius. The plot moves from one bit of violence to another, with nary a thoughtful moment in between. In other words, this a perfectly satisfying thriller, an American flag waver.

Thor's characters have a bit of depth. Scot Harvath's exploits just make you want to stand up and cheer (provided you support the United States and its goals). Thor is particularly aggressive in his views of radical Islam and the poltically correct multiculturalists in the United States and elsewhere who are yielding democracy to a theocracy.

As noted, the plot borrows heavily from "The DaVinci Code" with the protagonist having to piece together bits of a puzzle while the bad guys are trying to kill the good guys. From time to time, Thor asks the reader to accept a jump in logic or an implausible happening, such as hairbreadth escapes. But Thor is a strong enough writer to carry the reader over the occasional chasm.

The ending, however, is on the weak side and a real stretch. I don't know if Thor ran out of time or ideas, but the last few pages weren't nearly as satisfying as those that went before.

Still, for thriller fans, "The Last Patriot" is a wonderfully jingoistic, red, white and blue story, filled with All-American heroes and nasty bad guys. Great fun reading!

A slick thriller from the new master
Another great thriller from Brad Thor, this time tackling a very touchy subject but he pulls it of with some very good twists and continues development of the Scott Harvath character.

Only negative is the ending which literally just ended, no clues to whats coming next or resolution of what has just happened.

If you like Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan or Vince Flynn's books then this is a most enjoyable series to start reading. All the books are very good and very enjoyable.