The Apostle [Audio CD]

Brad Thor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2009

9 CDs/10.5 hours - Unabridged edition

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Recorded Books; Library Edition edition (2009)
• ISBN-10: 1440727252
• ISBN-13: 978-1440727252
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (142 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,696,828 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I always get asked if Brad Thor is my real name or if I made it up because it sounded perfect for an international thriller writer. My standard reply is that if I was going to chose a nom de plume, it would fall in the C's somewhere between Clancy and Cussler so that all of my books could be displayed at eye level.

As the son of a United States Marine and a former TWA flight attendant, travel has always been in my blood. In fact, the title for my first novel, The Lions of Lucerne came to me while I was in Switzerland shooting an episode of my Public Television travel series, Traveling Lite (still seen in many countries outside the U.S.).

It happened when I went to visit what Mark Twain called the most moving piece of rock in the world. The Lion of Lucerne is a sculpture of a dying lion with a spear broken off in its side. It had been commissioned to honor the 700+ Swiss Guard who died defending King Louis and Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution. Fast-forward a couple of years to my wife and me sitting in a cafe in Amsterdam. I was reading a story in the International Herald Tribune about a Swiss Intelligence officer who had embezzled money from the Swiss Army and was caught training his own shadow militia high in the Alps with high-tech weapons from his own private arsenal. Just like that, the idea for my first novel was born.

Since then, I have written many more with the same protagonist - Navy SEAL turned covert counterterrorism operative, Scot Harvath. Thanks to my readers, all of the novels have been national bestsellers and book club favorites. They are also being made into major motion pictures. By the way, many people ask me what order they should read the books in. You can read them in any order. They are all written to stand on their own. But for those who are interested, the order is: The Lions of Lucerne, Path of the Assassin, State of the Union, and Blowback.

I am currently hard at work on my next Scot Harvath thriller.

Thank you for visiting my Amazon.com page. Please scroll down to learn a little bit more about me and my novels.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another bare-knuckled thrill ride from one of the masters, August 18, 2009

By 

Darryl Kujawski - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Apostle (Scot Harvath, Book 8) (Hardcover)

Brad Thor is one of the preeminent writers of thriller today, and his best-selling books are too numerous to count...so instead of talking about his past successes, let's get straight to his newest novel: The Apostle: A Thriller, shall we? The book, in short, is about an American physician who gets kidnapped while working in Afghanistan. Ah, the scene is set, but this doctor has connections. He, and his family, are politically connected to America's new President, and turn to him for help, but the ransom being asked is too steep for the President, and he decides to launch a covert operation to get the American physician back instead.

The premise, along with the characters, are rather interesting - they have a passionate view on the current state and try to convince others to come to that point of view. It would seem that The Apostle has mingled in current affairs with a fictional tale. The President in the story is another interesting facsimile of our current Commander in Chief. A quote from the book "the new President had been very aggressive with his first 100 days. Campaigning on a platform of change, and he had done just that when he stepped into the Oval Office, and not necessarily for the better." The President, in the book, had single handily eviscerated the central intelligence of the country.

Much like all of Brad Thor's novels, he bases them on current headlines but allows the reader to decide which is which. Is the President in the book based off of our current President? The Apostle informs, implores, and entertains the reader in a way that only a few authors can. He has created another bare-knuckled thrill ride that seems so believable, it could have been taken from the headline news. I really enjoyed this novel (as I've enjoyed all Brad Thor's novels) I guarantee everyone will walk away from this reading experience knowing more about global terrorism, central intelligence, and other aspects of our country that you didn't know before.

But I personally think the true message of the book (or at least what I took it to be) As Americans there is quite a bit of frustrations with the higher offices of the country. We have got fantastic men and women in the militaries that are putting their lives on the line to protect our citizens, to protect our country, and to protect Lady Liberty, and yet, they are forced to deal with some of the worst management and leadership...and they shouldn't have to. This book really is a voice for the people who can't speak of these matters due to the red tape and bureaucracy. The Apostle: A Thriller is an incredible novel that you don't want to miss...another great book I'd recommend is: Conquest: The First Horseman (The Four Horsemen Series, Book 1) a remarkable tale of heroics and bravery.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Authentic but unremarkable military thriller, January 13, 2010

By 

Jeremy Taylor (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Apostle (Scot Harvath, Book 8) (Hardcover)

Brad Thor's eighth novel featuring special-forces hero Scot Harvath provides decent entertainment value along with an in-depth and realistic look at the conditions U.S. troops face in Afghanistan, but it is plagued by a flawed premise and lackluster writing.

When the daughter of a wealthy presidential supporter is kidnapped in Afghanistan, Scot Harvath is called upon to comply with the ransom demands by breaking a captured terrorist out of prison. Unwilling to compromise his patriotic principles by aiding the enemy, even under orders from the commander in chief, Harvath assembles a team to help him carry out a revised mission--free the terrorist, but instead of exchanging him for the American hostage, use him to ascertain where she is being held, then free her and return the terrorist to the Afghan authorities. True to form, Harvath is determined to right a wrong and save the day while upholding the fundamentals of conservative American foreign policy.

As a military adventure story, the book mostly succeeds. Thor is good at writing exciting action scenes, and the book is for the most part fun and easy to read. The problem is that in trying to manufacture a believable reason why the U.S. president would so blatantly misuse his office's authority by ordering a terrorist freed in exchange for the life of a political ally's child, the story becomes overcomplicated. By the time the reader has made it through the background investigation by a Secret Service agent into events that politically indebted the president to the hostage's mother, the story is all but finished, rendering the background basically moot and the tidy conclusion ultimately unsatisfying. The book would have been better had it focused on a simple search-and-rescue operation. Of course, then there might not have been reason enough for Scot Harvath to rise to the challenge in the first place.

Thor actually traveled to Afghanistan and was embedded with a military unit as part of his research for writing The Apostle, which lends a degree of authenticity to the characters' experiences. One tidbit that stands out is the acronym TIA--"This Is Afghanistan"--used to explain seemingly incomprehensible differences between American and Afghan sensibilities.

Unfortunately, the book's positives are balanced, if not outweighed, by the negatives. Lack of character depth and the plot's overcomplexity significantly detract from the well-researched story and genuinely suspenseful military action scenes. In the end, The Apostle serves as an example of what could have been a timely, compelling book held to mediocrity by a few avoidable flaws.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding Afganistan, August 7, 2010

By 

Kay Scholz - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Apostle: A Thriller (Scot Harvath) (Paperback)

This fast-paced, well writen and knowledgeable book gives you a real insight into the culture of Afganistan. It opened my eyes to the ordeals our military personnel go thru daily in this long lasting, unending war.