Robert Ludlum's The Geneva Strategy: A Covert-One Novel - Audiobook
Review
Robert Ludlum's The Geneva Strategy: A Covert-One Novel - Audiobook
This action/adventure thriller opens as a sergeant, out with his troop on a morning drill in Afghanistan, swats away what he thinks is a bee, then watches in horror as seven of his men walk off a hundred-foot cliff to their deaths. At the same time in Washington, DC, several high-ranking government officials are kidnapped, each carrying one piece of a code that activates an experimental drone system for the US military.
Biochemist Dr. Laura Taylor has designed an experimental drug to assist military personnel suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to forget their war experiences. She was suspended after the drug appeared to have serious, often fatal side effects and has been institutionalized in a mental health facility after writing a paper claiming she had been approached to weaponize the drug as an aerosol. When fellow researcher and Covert-One secret agent Dr. Jon Smith uncovers the report, he pulls together his international team to rescue the missing officials. When two are saved and another murdered, evidence reveals that the survivors are victims of mind-altering drugs and have total amnesia about their capture and imprisonment.
"Actor Jeff Woodman has an Olympic task ahead of him to narrate a novel filled with men and women of such varied backgrounds that his agility with dialect keeps the listener from getting lost in the dialogue-heavy plot peopled by dozens of characters."
Smith, who works under deep cover, is contacted by a civil rights activist lawyer who is convinced that there is a dangerous cover-up concerning the US military's drone program. Reluctantly, he joins with the lawyer to find the remaining missing officials in a spell-binding, globe-hopping fight against time as agents from enemy governments gather the missing vials of the drug and continue to seek the remaining passwords. Object: to try out the drug at an international conference of pharmaceutical companies in Geneva, Switzerland, for its effectiveness, then conduct a mass drone attack containing the lethal drugs on the United States Congress and White House.
Jamie Freveletti is an award-winning, bestselling author with a background in international studies and trial law. Her grasp of fast-action suspense and understanding of international politics, as well as martial arts combat training, brings real-life action to a continuance of Robert Ludlum’s original creations.
Actor Jeff Woodman has an Olympic task ahead of him to narrate a novel filled with men and women of such varied backgrounds that his agility with dialect keeps the listener from getting lost in the dialogue-heavy plot peopled by dozens of characters. He is able to jump from a Middle Easterner to a Chinese manager of a hacking group in Shanghai, and within minutes engage a group of the heroes --- one a German national, another of British origin, two different women, and two Americans with regional accents --- in a conference. This is lingual gymnastics of a high order, yet the listener is not confused with who is saying what and to whom. With several Ludlum-based Covert-One narrations under his belt, he brings Freveletti’s satisfying white knuckler to a rousing finish.
Reviewed by Roz Shea on March 20, 2015