Act of War

A high-tech thriller written by Brown and read by Dufris is a hard act to follow. First, you have gadgets like CID, a nine-foot robot you can climb inside and with which you can do superhuman feats. Then you have a reader whose natural voice is melodic and whose characterizations, including women, are one hundred percent convincing. All this comes together in a yarn about a group of conspirators who set off a thermonuclear device at an oil complex near Houston, killing thousands. Finally, you have U.S. Army Engineer Major Jason Richtor, a new character for Brown, who parlays smarts and technology into finding and eliminating the terrorist threat. A.L.H. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine


Narrator Larry Pressman has his work cut out for him performing this overblown, befuddled story of betrayal, betrayal and, oh yes, betrayal. He's as American as all get out as good guy Jason Richards, the only decent person in this espionage story, which pits the evil American government against the evil polluter that is fighting evil environmentalists who use dirty nukes to make their point. All the while, innocent Americans are mere pawns and cannon fodder. The energetic Pressman excels at distinguishing one villain from another. It's not his fault that the premise of the story--soldiers using robot suits to fight terrorists--just doesn't cut it. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine