Reviews

Adrenaline by James Robert Baker

cmbohn's review against another edition

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3.0

Sam works for the CIA. His wife is expecting their first baby. She also works for the Company. One day Sam goes to work and receives a call to from her to come outside right this second. As soon as he does a bomb goes off in the building and she disappears.

Sam is now the only survivor and the chief suspect. He only wants to escape custody and find his wife and baby. To do that he has to make some new allies and go on the run.

I love a good thriller and this one sounded really exciting. It has a great premise, as who doesn't identify with wanting to find your family and keep them safe? The bad guys were pretty bad,the pace was goos. But the writing kept me from giving it more than 3.5 stars. Also I don't enjoy political thrillers as much, so it wasn't quite what I expected.

barbi312's review against another edition

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2.0

"Adrenaline" is the first novel written by Jeff Abbott that I've read. The premise of the book sounded promising, the beginning chapters were exciting, and then the story simply ran out of steam. In fact, it was about 100 pages too long. I read a fair amount of mysteries and spy thrillers, most of them more suspenseful and better written than "Adrenaline". In my opinion, this book deserves a C+ to B rating.

Without warning, CIA operative Sam Capra's happy life and the world as he knows it are blasted to smithereens, his family is torn apart, and he is accused of being a traitor. Sam spends the rest of the book tracking down and ultimately triumphing over a legion of bad guys using his wits, athleticism, guns, bare fists, flying feet and whatever objects happen to be handy.

About midway through the book, I became aware that the near misses were too numerous, the twists were too tangled and implausible, and the turns too numerous to count. Notwithstanding my overall disappointment, it's likely that I'll give the sequel a try in the hope that the author's next book will deliver more punch and less drag.

maureenmccombs's review against another edition

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3.0

3.5 stars

If you are a fan of Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp series than you will enjoy this book. I almost gave up at the very beginning because the protagonist (Sam Capra) is someone who is in the practice of parkour (Google it) and I had a tough time keeping my mind from thinking about the episode of The Office when Michael, Dwight and Andy are practicing their parkour skills and Andy jumps into an empty refrigerator box! It was hard for me to take that part of Capra's character seriously but the rest of the book was pretty well put together with some interesting twists and turns. The ending is obviously set up for the next in the series. The final 150 pages or so fly by and this was worth the read.

aschwennsen's review against another edition

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3.0

I would ideally like to give this book a 3.5 but that's not an option. I wish "whelmed" was a word, like I don't feel over or underwhelmed by this book. Basically, it was as good as it could be as a novel that features a CIA agent who does parkour. Like I could have done without every single one of those scenes.

clockless's review against another edition

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4.0

Decent thriller. Moderately generic, but non-offensive. Wonderfully short chapters made for easy dip in/dip out reading. Nothing world changing by any means, but it did everything it set out to do. I know none of this is exactly high praise, but it's not my favorite genre and I've read a lot worse. If I know someone is looking for something within the genre, I'd recommend it without a second thought.

lindagreen's review against another edition

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1.0

Word of mouth caused me to read this book, otherwise I might have passed on it. Unfortunately, it is a standard mainstream book. The characters were flat, the plot like almost every other one in this genre and the plodding along wasn't suspenseful at all. Completely forgettable but if you are looking for mindless way to pass time without investing yourself in a story or characters, this may be the choice for you.

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