Review: The Lion’s Game
Libyan Asad Khalil is in Paris and requests to defect to the US. He flies into JFK airport in New York, escorted by two federal agents. When the plane lands on auto-pilot, ex NYPD cop John Corey and FBI agent Kate Mayfield suspect there is a problem and boarding the plane confirms their suspicions – everyone on board is dead, and Asad Khalil is missing.
A task force is formed to find Khalil, and at first, things seem to be going nowhere fast. When Corey does some investigating and discovers that Khalil’s family was killed in a bombing raid on Libya in 1986, he pieces together a theory. Going with his intuition and, at times, against authority, Corey and Mayfield set out to try to track Khalil down. Along the way, there’s a little romance and a lot of danger and intrigue.
I listened to The Lion’s Game by Nelson DeMille and thoroughly enjoyed it. The book is action packed, full of suspense and even funny at times. John Corey is irreverent, chauvinistic and arrogant and he’s just the kind of character I love! I don’t like people like that in real life, but I sure do enjoy them as characters in books. I guess you could say he’s the kind of character I love to hate.
The story in this book sounds like one that could be plucked from today’s headlines – a terrorist has come to the US to take revenge for a previous military action. This made the story believable and all the more compelling for me. It also made me think that things aren’t always as black and white as the government and the media would have us believe.
The unabridged audio version of this book lasts approximately 25 hours, but with Scott Brick reading, it seemed like far less. He does an outstanding job and remains one of my favorite narrators. The follow up to this book, The Lion, will be released in June of 2011, and I understand that Scott Brick will be reading it as well, and I, for one, cannot wait.
Update: Thanks to Jeff, I discovered that the unabridged audio of THE LION is available now!
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I loved Scott Brick reading DeMille novels….entertaining for sure!
I love that, that you love the character but no, you wouldn’t in real life! Isn’t that so true of many of this detective and espionage books?!!!
I love DeMille and have been seriously considering this book for awhile now. I am glad to hear that you liked it so much! Don’t you just love it when there is a perfectly rotten character for you to hate? I relish those types of things. Great review Kathy. You have made me want to go out and get this one sooner rather than later!
I used to love thrillers/spy novels then fell out of the habit of reading them. This makes me want to get back into them. I’m going to have to give this one a try.
Curious to hear Scott Brick’s voice now. I’ll have to see if they have samplers out there for listeners. Another brilliant review and I ditto what zibilee says… got to get this now 🙂
Can you really land a plane by autopilot? Anyway, this sounds good. I haven’t read DeMille in a long, long time.
I love Scott Brick!
this sounds right up my alley…but not in audio of course.
I read DeMille when I was younger, and I really enjoyed his books. It might be time to re-visit him.
If I liked thrillers then I am sure I would go for this. Sounds exciting
Lion’s Game sounds exciting and believable. Great review, Kathy! 🙂
This one sounds like a perfect fit for my husband! xo
I’m really not good with audio books, I have a hard time listening to them. This does sound like an interesting book. I’ll have to check it out.
Won’t this make a good movie too 🙂
I hate to admit this but I tried to read a Nelson DeMille novel a couple of years ago and could not get past the 2nd chapter….Jenners from Life…with Books tells me this one is the book I should re-try him with and now reading your review I’m thinking perhaps I need to do it with the audio version! There’s such a different enjoyment experience listening to a book rather than reading it….especially when my eyes are tired from the computer =}
I’ll let you know what I think! Thanks for the awesome review that may just get me give Mr. DeMille another shot!
sounds interesting.A suspense-conspiracy theory type book
in the audio book format sounds very tempting. thanks for the
review.
For some reason I’ve always thought that I wouldn’t enjoy a book of this genre…now I’m thinking I need to at least give one a shot! This may be it.
I enjoyed this book too. It was definitely entertaining!
I think I have only read one book by DeMille and it was years ago. I’ll have to give him another try.
i would listen to scott brick read a phone book! someone else recommended this audiobook to me and i’m putting it on hold asap! thanks so much for the reminder. 🙂
Jason & I listened to a lot of Demille on our early car trips. Don’t know why we stopped cause I know Jason would love this!
i have this book in my tbr already and i’m looking forward to reading it! i know exactly what you mean about john corey, but he does make a fascinating character.
I just entered the bib info for this review into Audiobook Jukebox (my wife is Audiobook DJ). I saw your comment about The Lion. I just wanted to let you know the unabridged audio version of that book (about 15 hours in length) was released in June 2010 with Scott Brick narrating. We have a couple of reviews of it posed in the Jukebox. The abridged version of the book (also with Brick) is set for release in June 2011. I enjoyed your review. Thanks for your support of Audiobook Jukebox.
I’m a huge John Corey fan … though I’m sure I wouldn’t actually like him in person I think he is a great fun character to read. There are some Corey books in between this one and “The Lion” you might to check out if you want more of a Corey fix before the June audio is released.