Great expectations, but a real disappointment!
Having read all of Brad Thor's nine previous thrillers, and having become a real Brad Thor fan and an on-line member of "the Thorum," I looked forward to my special collector's copy of "The Athena Project" with great anticipation. When it arrived, I wasted no time in starting to read. The opening ten chapters are vintage Brad Thor: A written-for-the-movies chase scene, a page-turning exploration sequence that ends with a horrific descriptive revelation, and multiple subplots (each with its own characters and setting) that you know are ultimately going to thread together. Over the next thirty chapters, those same elements recur in different though similar contexts. But I've gotten used to the hard-boiled tension maintained throughout the Scot Harvath series, and was frankly disappointed in Brad Thor's latest thriller, and not just because Harvath appears in only two brief scenes.
First, the reader is given a convincing explanation of how female anti-terrorist operatives receive the same training as their male counterparts, that they are just as tough and dedicated to their profession, and that, indeed, their femininity makes them a better choice for some assignments than some macho ex-SEAL agent. Chapter 2 reintroduces Alex Cooper, Julie Ericsson, Megan Rhodes, and Gretchen Casey, who first made their appearance in Thor's previous best-seller, "Foreign Influence." In that novel, they were very strong complements to the fearless and heroic Scot Harvath. But "The Athena Project" is supposed to be the story of their heroics, sans Harvath. Each is a thirty-ish college graduate with extensive background demonstrating her mental and physical prowess. Unfortunately, in the scenes that are designed to take up the time for them to travel from point A to point B, their vapid dialogue is very sophomoric and morphs them into a smart-assed version of Charlie's Chicks.
There were enough developments and page-turning scenes, however, that kept me hooked through chapter 48. But the final twelve chapters were a letdown. The resolution of the character relationships and subplots seemed contrived. The first nine thrillers all had a sense of immediacy to them: Something disastrous absolutely was about to happen and had to be averted before the clock struck twelve. Nowhere does the plot of the terrorists in this story have that same sense of immediacy and impending doom. And so the story ends, with the four young women enjoying a drink to celebrate the successful completion of their assignment, and one of them about to make a move on "Mr. Right Now."
In previous Brad Thor books, one chapter began on the next page following the end of the preceding chapter. In some paperbacks, chapters begin in the middle of a page. "The Athena Project," in its original hardback copy, is 322 pages. But, for some reason or another, someone made the decision to begin each chapter on a right-hand page. The result of this publishing decision is that there are 32 blank pages. I'm guessing that, especially in light of such lengthier stories as "Blowback," someone at Atria Books said, "290 pages does not a thriller make."
I'm still a Brad Thor fan and would highly recommend any of his earlier works. Maybe this one is a victim of his own bar having been set so high. I'd re-read any of the nine Harvath books in a heartbeat. This one can wait.
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