Customer Reviews

The Protector

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Cavanaugh, ex-Delta Force operator, is in the protection business working for Global Protection Services, a firm that protects those in dire circumstances. Their newest client is biochemist, Daniel Prescott. Prescott has developed a hormone that induces fear to be used by the military on the enemy. He is now hunted for the secrets that he has developed. He needs to disappear and enlists Global Protection Services. Prescott is not quite as helpless as he seems. Just as the plan for him to disappear comes to fruition, Cavanaugh's entire team is killed. Now Cavanaugh with the help of his wife, Jamie, is on the hunt for Prescott. With the use of every facet of his training, he and Jaime create a masterful plan to find a man with a brilliant mind trained by Cavanaugh himself in the art of disappearance.

In a myriad of plot twists and turns there is non-stop action. The plot is fast-paced and so riveting it is hard to put down. Cavanaugh and Jamie are well-drawn sympathetic characters that you can really care about.
David Morrell seems to fly a bit under the radar, but to me he is one of the best in his genre. If you are a first time reader, Morrell has a wonderful backlist of books. I would rank this one as one of his best.
Highly recommended.

THE PROTECTOR is a tour de force that ranks right up there with THE FIFTH PROFESSION and THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE ROSE. Cavanaugh is a protector (different from a bodyguard in that Cavanaugh is a highly trained special operations agent). When he's assigned to protect a biochemist, things go wrong. Cavanaugh's team is killed and he's forced to turn to his wife for help as he tries to set things right. Morrell uses plenty of authentic tradecraft and the book rockets along building suspense. If you're not on the edge of your seat turning pages as fast as you can, you don't have a heartbeat.

Tight plotting, smart characters, cool action set-pieces. This would make a great movie, but there's no way that Hollywood can match what Morrell brings to the table.

On a scale of one to five stars, THE PROTECTOR deserves a six. Don't start this one late at night or you'll be up until the wee hours of the morning and the last satisfying page is turned.

Whatever you do, don't miss this one!

As usual, Morrell fills the pages with tips and tricks of the "protection" business (ie, espionage-type action and "secrets of the trade"). The plot is intriguing and the characters are well drawn. The fear-inducing agent that triggers the novel's events is creepy, right in line with what we expect of our government's shadowy side, and used to great effect. Nice plot twists. There was a brief stretch just past the middle of the book when the story seems to get bogged down a bit, but by the end, it's back up to ninety miles per hour. I'm a big Morrell fan and this book didn't let me down.

This is a page-turner from the get go. Cavanaugh is a protector, one notch up from a bodyguard - a specially trained ex-government agent for hire. Daniel Prescott has invented a powerful new drug, and everyone from the drug cartels of South America to the U.S. Federal government is after him, and he hires Cavanaugh to protect him. But Prescott kills Cavanaugh's associates and tries to take Cavanaugh out too, then takes off, and Cavanaugh goes on the hunt for Prescott. The action is non-stop in this well written and well researched book. In fact, Morrell suffered a broken collarbone researching one of the weapons used - the knife on the cover of the book. This is yet another Morrell book that I could not put down - I stayed up until the middle of the night to finish it.

This book is typical Morrell: A lone-wolf hero, pursued by government and criminal types alike. Cavanaugh is the hero, working for an organization that provides protection for individuals who want to disappear for whatever reason (except criminal types). After being double-crossed by a client, costing him co-workers, he sets out for revenge, involving his wife, who to this point was uninvolved in his work. Is it predictable? Yes. Is it entertaining and informative? Yes, again.

We have to admit that Morrell's novel "Protector" rarely pauses for breath -- so the pages turn pretty fast as we are soon caught up in the hero's thrills and chills. The protagonist is Cavanaugh, an ex-Delta Force specialist who works for a protective custody firm. In quite a twist, we soon start wondering whether the current client, bio-chemist genius Daniel Prescott, is the one needing protection or a horrific villain in his own right who turns the tables on good guys and bad guys alike. Eventually Cavanaugh breaks all the rules and collaborates with his wife (who actually seems to have no other qualifications than desire and propinquity, but learns fast!) to chase the real bad guy to a satisfying conclusion. Violence and double crosses leave bodies strewn all along the way.

We've never read Morrell before, but gather from both his ratings and his extensive bibliography that fans of Rambo-style action come away more than entertained with his offerings. Our problem is that the good guy escapes death so many different times, and continues to fight injured when most mortals we know would be long out of commission, that credibility and plausibility extend beyond the breaking point. Despite the clever plot complexity, stories this violent are not exactly our favorite, reflected in our 3-star synopsis despite a book exhibiting skill and craft. And were it a movie (and we could see it being one!), most women would have walked out long before mid-point.

If you're a morrell fan, the action, suspense, and plot twists is no surprise. In fact, that's basically the downside for this book, the little to no surprises if you've read many of the other Morrell titles. It's very reminiscent of every other gun toting, tactical, master of espionage character he's created. The precautions Cavanaugh (the main character) takes like hating elevators and mentioning the smell of cordite is used several times in the book.

Yes, it's nothing new. Yet the fact remains, this is Morrell's work and defintely a good read no matter how familiar.

Morrell is a very skilled author and one of the best. I've read Assumed Identity, Desperate Measures, and The Totem. My favorite is still Assumed Identity which is one of the most exciting books I've come across. The Protector is my second best from Morrell and it is well worth the read. As other reviewers have stated it could easily be a movie. It keeps you enthralled with his writing style and the action scenes. The plot builds up climatic events quickly and the book is hard to put down. I especially enjoyed the ending which was set in a perfect location. I look forward to Morrell's next novel.

For thirty years David Morrell has been a leading talent in the thriller genre; not just a master at creating great realistic plots, but also writing some of the best (and most diverse) prose out there. With classics such as FIRST BLOOD, THE TOTEM and THE FIFTH PROFESSION to his credit to name a few; Morrell is the thriller writer's thriller writer.
Now over thirty years after FIRST BLOOD he returns with THE PROTECTOR, a book that may surpass even these other classics in terms of realism, page turning suspense and explosive action. In fact, THE PROTECTOR may be the best work Morrell has ever written.
The protagonist of the book is Cavanaugh, an ex-Special Forces soldier who is haunted by the violent massacre of his men on what was to be a routine training mission. Years later he is working for an organisation called Global Protective Services, a security organsisation that will bend the rules to ensure the safety of their clients.
Cavanaugh's latest charge is Daniel Prescott, a biochemist who has created a powerful new drug, and naturally the wrong people are hunting him down in order to learn its secret. On the surface Prescott appears to just be an annoying dweeb Cavanaugh has to babysit, but as is always the case; Cavanaugh finds out the hard way that Prescott is not a man to be underestimated... or trusted.
Fast paced, explosive, intelligent, brilliantly researched THE PROTECTOR may only be 400+ pages long, but Morrell throws up more action and intrigue than Tom Clancy has in his combined backlog (discounting the hideous BEAR AND THE DRAGON and RED RABBIT). And unlike Clancy, Morrell is a talented writer.
Strangely, Hollywood's long ignored Morrell. THIS IS THE MAN WHO CREATED JOHN RAMBO fer cryin' out loud! THE PROTECTOR is one of those books that as you read it, it actually feels like there's an action movie playing in your head. (A not so subtle hint to Hollywood execs).
If you've never tried David Morrell before then you've got a lot of great reading ahead of you. (But try and avoid the novelisations of RAMBO 2 & 3.) For novice Morrell readers just cutting their teeth, THE PROTECTOR is a great starting point.

Brilliant scientist Daniel Prescott needs to disappear for good otherwise he might get kidnapped or even killed. To succeed he needs an expert. The protector Cavanaugh is the professional who helps people adopt a new identity. First Prescott is just another job but then everything changes. The hunters are faster at the scenery than ever expected and they are well skilled - and they catch up again and again. Cavanaugh not only sees his own team getting killed but also Prescott turning against him and the team before he vanishes.
Is Prescott wanted by more than one group and what for? Why do some people want see Prescott dead while others need to catch him alive? Or is it all a smokescreen and the protection team was the real target from the beginning? Cavanaugh knows he has to be quick since he has only limited time left to find answers before Prescott might be gone for ever without a trace...

This book hardly lets the reader catch his breath. After a very short introduction the story takes off like a race car. Bullets fly, fire is all around and the chase is on. The first assault is hardly over when the second attack wave starts and the pace quickens again. From the beginning it sets the tone and general idea of the book. As a result it just forces you to keep on reading.

Basically the book is based on a quite simple idea but in comparison "The Protector" is a lot better than its predecessors "Burnt Sienna" and "Double Image". It has the same pace and a lot of similarities in style to "Long Lost".
On the other hand Morrell missed the chance to make the story more intricate. Unfortunately this book is not as complex as "The Covenant of the Flame" or "The Fifth Profession" and ultimately not as thrilling as "Assumed Identity", "Desperate Measures" or "Extreme Denial".

Overall it is a book that I can recommend because the amount of action makes the book well worth reading. But still I wish Morrell would write another one like his brilliant complex masterpieces just mentioned...