Pinnacle Event by Richard A. Clarke

I am a sucker for a bit of espionage and a great thriller when it comes to a read. So when this beauty arrived in my mailbox for review, my heart started pounding! I was so looking forward to taking this with me on my trip. Audio books are awesome for traveling in the car and this one got a good workout!

Pinnacle Event by Richard A. Clarke
Audio CD
Publisher: Macmillan Audio; Unabridged edition (May 19, 2015)
ISBN-13: 978-1427261168

With the 2016 presidential election just weeks away, five simultaneous murders on three continents lead to an investigation revealing the recent black-market sale of five nuclear weapons. But who bought them? And what is their intended target?

Washington fears the bombs are timed to explode in major American cities before the election. They call on intelligence expert Ray Bowman to prevent the attack. With the help of a Mossad agent and a female South African intelligence officer, he follows a trail across the world to track down the missing nukes. Along the way, he discovers that the people who now control the bombs intend to do something much more devastating than expected, something that it will make nuking a few cities look like a mild attack.

Drawing on his decades of experience at the highest levels of national security, Richard A. Clarke’s Pinnacle Event-the Pentagon code for a nuclear threat-is a gripping international thriller told from the rare vantage point of a true Washington insider.

My Thoughts:

The world is a crazy place and when the treat of nukes is alive and under eminent use, it can make for a thrilling story. While the last book I read from this author, Sting of the Drone, had me on the edge of my seat a few times, this one failed a bit for me.

This book had everything I was looking for in a great thriller, but it seemed like it was the same conversation over and over. The character development was okay (could have been better in spots), but there ended up being so many people to keep track of as the ex-spy traveled around the world in search of clues that it became repetitive to me.

The reader, Jonathan Davis, did an excellent job on the many different voices and languages but even at times he seemed a bit monotone as he was working through a scene. The author just did not include enough background or development to keep things really interesting. As the ending was unraveling, there was so much happening at the last second, literally, this book could have really exploded, but I was left quite neutral about the whole thing. One dimensional and flat are the words that are coming to me.

While I have enjoyed other books by this author, this one just did not ring my bell. It has potential to be excellent, but I missed the spark and edginess that this book needed to be labeled a thriller or suspense novel.

Disclaimer: Chris has personally reviewed the product listed above. She has not received any monetary compensation for her review but did receive a free product to try out so she could evaluate and use it for this post. Her thoughts & opinions in this review are unbiased & honest and your opinions may differ.