The Killswitch by James Rollins and Grant Blackwood
Narrated by Scott Aiello

Tucker Wayne #1

Description from Goodreads:

Who does the U.S. government call upon when a mission requires perfect stealth, execution, and discretion? Meet the newest recruits to the expanding Sigma Force universe—former Army Ranger Tucker Wayne and his stalwart companion, Kane, a military working dog of exceptional abilities — in:

THE KILL SWITCH

The mission seems simple enough: extract a pharmaceutical magnate from Russian soil, a volatile man who holds the secret to a deadly bioweapon. But nothing is as it appears to be. A conspiracy of world-shattering scope unravels as Tucker and Kane struggle to keep one move ahead of their deadly enemies.

Genre: Thriller / Adventure
Rating: **** (4 of 5 stars)

I have a paperback copy of this book, but I saw the audio version available at the library and decided just to listen instead. This turned out to be a good one to listen to. The narrator did a great job of making the different characters’ voices unique and using the right amount of emotion or emphasis in any given situation to keep you totally engaged. I admit that my mind sometimes wanders when I’m listening to an audiobook with a dull narrator, but that didn’t happen here.

I love James Rollins’ Sigma Force series, and I’ve enjoyed Tucker and Kane’s guest appearances, so I was looking forward to reading this story that focused on the two of them and not the whole Sigma team. I was a little nervous about it after seeing another author’s name on the cover though. Not because I have anything against Grant Blackwood – I’ve never read his books – just because I was afraid the book would lose the James Rollins feel, if you know what I mean, but I wasn’t disappointed in the writing.

In The Kill Switch, Sigma enlists the help of Tucker and Kane to get a scientist and his daughter out of Russia. They are pursued by the Russian military, secret service agencies, and hired assassins as they try to escape the country and then locate an ancient plant specimen that is the focus of the doctor’s work. I really liked this action / adventure story. It was a lot of fun, but I did have one problem with it. I can’t say too much without giving an important plot point away, but there was something going on that I thought was so obvious that it was hard to believe a trained-soldier-turned-mercenary could have missed it. There were so many clues – I did actually find myself almost shouting at Tucker at one point asking how he could not see it! 🙂 If anyone has read the book, I’d love to know if you felt the same way.

In the end though, the story was very enjoyable. I’m looking forward to Tucker and Kane’s next adventure, whether that is with Sigma Force or on their own.

Sound like your kind of book? Then you might enjoy this interview –  The Kill Switch: A Talk with James Rollins