Pirate (Hawke) (Hawke) (ISBN 1597373737)

Download Description:
"In Ted Bell's scorching follow-up to his New York Times bestseller Assassin, intrepid intelligence operative Alex Hawke must thwart a secret, deadly alliance between China and France before they annihilate everything and everyone in their headlong rush toward world domination. Aboard the Star of Shanghai in the south of France, an American spy is held captive. He possesses vital, explosive intelligence linking two nations and one horrifying plot. If he is not rescued, he faces certain torture and inevitable death. Nearby, in a seaside hotel, a man still haunted by the loss of his wife two years earlier finds comfort in the arms of a beautiful Chinese actress--but is she to be trusted? So begins Pirate, an electrifying thriller marking the return of international counterterrorist Alex Hawke. In Paris, a ruthless descendant of Napoleon has risen to power, hell-bent on restoring France's former glory. His fiery ambitions are cynically stoked by a coterie of cold-blooded Mandarins, plotting behind the gates of Beijing's Forbidden City. Cloaked in secrecy, this unholy alliance devises a twisted global plan, backed by China's growing nuclear arsenal, that will send America and the world to the brink of a gutwrenching showdown. With the aid of his old friend and former Navy SEAL, Stokely Jones, Hawke sets out to investigate the deadly connections that bind the French-Chinese axis. Together, they discover that a powerful German industrialist may hold the key, somewhere inside the walls of his Bavarian mountain lair. Meanwhile, clues to an old and gruesome murder in Paris lead to New York City, where horrifying evidence could finally bring a madman to his knees. In the end, as American and British forces prepare to defend a sovereign and oil-rich Gulf nation against unwilling occupation, the terror is all too real. The world is once more balanced on the knife-edge of a full-blown nuclear confrontation. Hawke must once more prepare to hurl himself deep into the nightmare visions of madmen. He must garner every ounce of strength, courage, and useful pain from his past. He must defeat this enemy or else forfeit the lives of untold thousands, including his own, to an axis of evil no historian could have ever predicted. Packed with unrelenting action, glamour, and high style, and featuring the spectacular Alex Hawke, who time and again transports readers to the edge of danger, Pirate is a spellbinding thriller. Be prepared for Alex Hawke's most daunting and heart-pounding mission yet. Here is an author who gets you in the palm of his hand...and then clenches his fist! "

Great Book:
Ted writes a fine thriller dealing in some of todays most compelling topics. I read all of his books and will continue to. If you like Tom Clancy and the other writers in this genre you'll love Ted's books!

Hawke Rocks!:
It took a little while to get through the 600+ pages of the paperback. Not that it was hard reading, it wasn't, just the sheer number of pages. It was worth the effort. Pirate opens with a spy, caught by the Chinese, on a slow boat back to China. The spy, however, has knowledge of a Chinese conspiracy to directly get oil from a Middle Eastern country with the assistance of France. He is the only person privy to this information. The CIA sends in Alex Hawke to rescue him, and thus begins an excellent novel. The novel takes you from Cannes, to Taiwan, Paris, New York, and England. Along the way, you meet a very unsavory cross-dressing Chinese agent/assassin, very deadly, twin female assassins, and a megalomaniacal French politician (a direct descendent of Napoleon Bonaparte). Pirate brings all of these characters together for a very believable plot concerning Red China pulling the strings of France to get direct access to oil, access to Taiwan, and subplots concerning super tankers doubling as atomic bombs and a 30-year old murder. The whole point is to crush America's standing as an economic powerhouse. And to sever their ties with Middle Eastern oil. The heroes of the novel, including the main character, Alex Hawke, are well drawn and believable. Bell does a great job of not making the secondary characters two dimensional. He also is able to tie all of the subplots together in a fashion that doesn't seem rushed or contrived. But you have to know that Alex Hawke gets himself out of some jams that will remind you of a Cussler novel. But not as quickly (hey, it is 600 pages - and it was a paperback!) This is the fourth novel in the Alex Hawke series, and I will have to go back and read the others, before reading his latest novel, Spy. This is one of those times when you are glad to have picked up a novel, without knowing that it was a series, and are happy to find that you have additional books to fill in some of the backstory. Another highly recommended series.

Ted Bell:
One of my favorite authors. Read the whole series. Make sure you pick up 'Nick of Time", as well. I believe it was recently re-released.

So predictable a complete waste of time:
Save your money. Anyone that picks the book up will know what happens. We all have seen the characters and story line before. I find it hard to believe that the book was published and that the series is still around. Bell would have had a better series if he took the rich hero and have him battle financial crime. I just found it disgusting that the author would want anyone to believe that this guy is the only guy that can save America and the world. What a cruel joke.

I wanted to like it....:
I really wanted to like this book. Looking for a fun, summer, beach read--I picked this one up. It started off pretty well. Very interesting plot line, a couple of interesting characters...but then it fell flat for me. I ended up dropping it about 3/4 of the way through. Too many cliches, characters that were caricatures and a lack of understanding by the author of the military, CIA, etc. Not terrible, but not that great either.