Kill Zone

September 10, 2007
Coughlin wrote with Davis on Shooter
, a memoir of Coughlin’s career as a Marine Corps sniper. In the team’s debut novel, the two pit Gunnery Sgt. Kyle Swanson, the corps’s best sniper, against a secret alliance of government and business bigwigs. A triumvirate of National Security Adviser Gerald Buchanan, Senate Armed Services Committee chair Ruth Reed and megarich businessman Gordon Gates IV are using Gates Global (the world’s preeminent private security company) to implement a plan to take over the military, rewrite the Constitution and usher in the creation of a “New America.” In Saudi Arabia, Marine Brig. Gen. Bradley Middleton is kidnapped by two mercenaries working for Gates Global. After Swanson is chosen to be part of a rescue team, helicopters carrying the rescuers crash on landing, and Swanson is left with only his exceptional combat skills and his high-tech rifle, Excalibur (“a sniper’s wet dream”). The action reaches such a furious pitch that readers will hardly notice an overly romantic subplot or the clumsy machinations of the evil trio.

This thriller based in the Middle East involves a captured Marine general who has only a matter of hours until he is beheaded. The new writing team of Coughlin and Davis offers a gripping account that is sure to enthrall listeners with its authentic approach and suspenseful plot twists. Narrator Scott Sowers delivers a solid and commanding performance. When the rescue team's helicopter crashes, Sgt. Kyle Swanson, the Marine's best sniper, finds himself on his own in going after the general. Capturing the urgency of the story through his terse, unwavering tone, Sowers breathes life into the characters and credibly delivers the heart-pounding action. The story becomes instantly believable and all the more thrilling with Sowers's performance and Coughlin's personal experience as a Marine sniper. L.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine