The Athena Project [Unabridged] [Hardcover]

Brad Thor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 23, 2010

The world’s most elite counterterrorism unit has just taken its game to an entirely new level. And not a moment too soon . . .

From behind the rows of razor wire, a new breed of counterterrorism operator has emerged. 

Just as skilled, just as fearsome, and just as deadly as their colleagues, Delta Force’s newest members have only one thing setting them apart—their gender. Part of a top-secret, all-female program codenamed The Athena Project, four of Delta’s best and brightest women are about to undertake one of the nation’s deadliest assignments. 

When a terrorist attack in Rome kills more than twenty Americans, Athena Team members Gretchen Casey, Julie Ericsson, Megan Rhodes, and Alex Cooper are tasked with hunting down the Venetian arms dealer responsible for providing the explosives. But there is more to the story than anyone knows. 

In the jungles of South America, a young U.S. intelligence officer has made a grisly discovery. Surrounded by monoliths covered with Runic symbols, one of America’s greatest fears appears to have come true. Simultaneously in Colorado, a foreign spy is close to penetrating the mysterious secret the U.S. government has hidden beneath Denver International Airport. 

As Casey, Ericsson, Rhodes, and Cooper close in on their target, they will soon learn that another attack—one of unimaginable proportions—has already been set in motion, and the greatest threat they face may be the secrets kept by their own government.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Thor nails it. A thriller both men and women will love.” --James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Doomsday Key

"Think 007 in stilettos and you've got the women of The Athena Project. The thriller genre just got shaken and stirred." - Sandra Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Tough Customer

Book Description

Tucked away in a remote corner of North Carolina’s Fort Bragg, behind rows of razor wire and heavily armed guards, lies the headquarters of the nation’s most elite counter-terrorism unit - the United States Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta. Here, a brilliant new approach to combating terrorism has just been born. Its codename: The Athena Project.

The novels will follow an elite team of female warriors from their recruitment as top-level athletes, through their training, to their deployment on some of the most exciting and dangerous international assignments the fiction world has ever seen.

Brad Thor’s readers will be electrified as he employs his vast knowledge of covert operations and military intrigue to bring to life his most heart-pounding, globe-trotting thrillers yet.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Atria Books; 1st Printing edition (November 23, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439192952
• ISBN-13: 978-1439192955
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (198 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #51,668 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

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Clive Cussler meets Charlie's Angels, January 27, 2011

By 

J. Nicklin "kayenine" (Hood River, OR) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Athena Project (Hardcover)

Terrible! One of the very worst books that I've read, and I'm a Thor fan. What ever possessed Brad Thor to write a story about a beautiful, sexy spec ops team of women? AND, chasing after a WW II Nazi invented transporter device capable to sending EMP bombs anywhere in the world, undetected. This is like some sick, twisted collaboration between Clive Cussler, Matthew Reilly and Barbara Cartland. Our hero, Scott Harvath, makes an appearance but as nothing more than a nobody gopher with his balls cut off as he caters to the whims of the sex-kittens. No reason to include Harvath in this other than as an attempt to tie Thor's other stories into this. From the awful story and ridiculous characters I would expect Thor to want to distance himself (and Harvath, his cash cow) as far as possible from this garbage. The "girls" in this story have been carefully selected for their athleticism, determination, work ethic along with their large breasts and long legs (and I'm not kidding). We are led to believe that they are as tough as any Delta, SEAL, Recon or Spetsnaz soldiers and they prove it by kicking ass on every special forces guy that comes along without breaking a nail and giving the constant Cussler-like witty dialog as bullets fly past their heads. Apparently all of the trained soldiers shooting at them cannot maintain their excellent marksmanship in the face of such beauty and large, Kevlar enhanced, breasts. Oh sorry, no body armor here. It would only clash with their uniform of choice; slinky evening gowns wherein they somehow manage to conceal their 9mm Glocks. I particularly loved the scenes with the constant sexual banter over who's sleeping with whom and how they are the "...smartest, best looking, hardest working warriors (they) know". Sadly this is clearly a work up to a sequel and perhaps (God forbid) a series. Oh, Thor, what have you done?

61 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun and action packed story, November 28, 2010

By 

Stephen M. Charme (central New Jersey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Athena Project (Hardcover)

I am a big fan of Brad Thor, though this is not his typical novel. In Thor's last novel, Foreign Influence, a Delta Force team of women named Athena helped Thor's protagonist, ex Navy Seal Scott Horvath, in dealing with terrorists. In this novel, which is relatively short, Horvath puts in only a few cameo appearances, and Thor's usual political discussions are missing. Instead this novel focuses on Athena's efforts to stop the use of a machine invented by the Nazis, and now in the hands of the wrong people, from being used against the United States.

Think of Charlies Angels, except now there are four women instead of three, and they are not only beautiful but deadly. Instead of the faceless Charlie, their control person is a Delta Force commander named Rob Hutton. The four team members can just as easily engage in silly banter among themselves as turn deadly serious when they focus on their different missions.

This is a fun, fast moving and action packed novel. I disagree with the negative reviews complaining that the Athena team members are like comic book characters, that their conversations are meaningless, or that their actions are completely implausible. The ending is not exactly a cliffhanger, but there are loose ends that I expect will be further pursued in a sequel.

If you liked watching Charlies Angels, then you will like this novel. If not, then read some of Thor's other novels. For me, I welcomed the change of pace from his other novels and found this very entertaining.

44 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Quite Poor!, December 14, 2010

By 

bobbewig (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Athena Project (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I can't remember when I read a book this bad from an author that generally writes pretty good books.

In his latest book, Brad Thor features an all-female team of Delta Force members that are asked to undertake one of the nation's deadliest counterterrorism assignments, codenamed The Athena Project. In brief, the four woman team is tasked with hunting down the Venetian arms dealer responsible for providing the explosives that were used to kill more than 20 Americans during a terrorist attack in Rome. Then, the team learns that an even larger attack has been set in motion, and the greatest threat they face may be the secrets kept by their own government.

Sound good? Well, the old saying "Don't judge a book by its cover" has rarely applied more than to The Athena Project. I won't spend a lot of time in conveying my opinion of this book -- since it has already taken up too much of my time by reading it -- other than to tell you that Thor provides virtually no meaningful character development of his main and minor characters to help differentiate them from each other, the dialogue he has them speak is awful and child-like, the plot (which has its fair share of action) is too implausible, and its conclusion is predictable.

'Nuf said to forewarn as to why I'd advise you to skip this book (no matter how big a Brad Thor fan you are)? I hope so -- because I'm pretty sure that if you do decide to read this book you'll soon be posting a review on Amazon of The Athena Project that is similar in many ways to mine.