Pretty good spy story

This box set overall was pretty good listen. I had a hard time getting hooked in the first book. It was slow to catch my attention but by the middle the action had me listening any chance I got. The second and third books were not as slow to start but didn't grab my attention like most mystery/spy book do. The narrator did a fairly good job some parts seemed a bit dull but overall good. Overall this was a good set to listen to I received this book for free for an honest review.

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A great bundle!

The best thing about reading the first three books back to back is that you can really appreciate the way the main character, Frank Bowen, is growing. How he is evolving, getting better at what he does.

Frank Bowen is a great character, interesting and easy to understand, the plots on these books are very well done, and the writing is engaging. A great choice for those who love thrillers.

Chris MacDonnell does a great job with the narration.

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2 people found this helpful

Great spy thriller set! Great intrigue!

Frank Bowen Conspiracy Thriller Series: Books 1-3 by Jay Tinsiano and narrated by Chris MacDonnell is an audible book set I requested and the review is voluntary. These books are very intriguing and exciting with plenty of action and adventure. After the first book I wondered why Frank would even trust his guys to give him another assignment! Book two he ended up in yet another predicament because of them! Ugh! Each book is a few years apart so maybe he forgot but I don't think I would! I don't want to tell you why to spoil it! The third book was kind of payback or karma, lol! I don't normally read or listen to shovels but I am trying to expand my horizons! I truly enjoyed these books.

Book1, False Flag, was a very intense politically thriller about a man set up as a terrorist while in Hong Kong. He was working for for the UK government at the time. The UK government is after him and the Hong Kong government. Soon Lots of governments have his picture. There is a lot of twists and turns, action, adventure, suspense, and a slight touch of romance in here. Fast paced.

Book 2 is Pandora Red and it is just as much a suspenseful thriller as book one. There are secret files that show how the UK is spying on it's people. Everyone wants the file and will do anything to get it. It is the UK version of the Snowden files! Government never admits wrong doing and accuses the whistleblower. But the story here is totally different! Wild and action packed! Our guy must quit trusting his MI6 friend!

Book 3, Ghost Order, deals with transporting an American from point A to B, no airplane, and keep him alive. There are a lot of people wanting him. They don't care how many or who the kill to get him. I liked this one best.

This was a great set and I probably wouldn't have read it if I hadn't made the effort to expand my wings!
The narration was wonderful, just like a British spy novel should sound in my head! Lol!

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2 people found this helpful

The Start of a Great Series

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Frank Bowen was just a regular guy that broke up with his girlfriend and traveled the world until he was used to execute some terrorist plot. As soon as he was hired to do some work from what I thought were some shady characters, that's when the action really started. Some of the story seemed like Frank had a lot of luck on his side as he was getting away from an assassin.
Eventually, the right people noticed something not right with Frank's situation and that's when everything started to wrap up in False Flag. I thought there was something off with Maria and still think so; I'm thinking she might be playing a long game on Frank, but only time will tell.

Pandora Red was an okay story. Frank gets hired and trained as a spy and by the end of the story he's on his own again. With a mission to surveil a target that has sensitive information, he's given no choice but to rescue the target, evade capture, and save his family that was kidnapped by Russians. By the end of the book, his agency lets him go for turning over sensitive info on a USB drive to a news agency and fights to get his family back from the Russians after Liberatus leaks the info. Liberatus reminds me of Wiki-Leaks.

Ghost Order has Frank separated from his girlfriend and kids and having to work another job in hopes of getting his family back. We see Liberatus again in this book and I feel like we will continue to see them in future stories. Again, Frank has to fight to get back to his family.

A lot of the stories remind me of some of the movies about the same topic; Mission Impossible, The Recruit, etc.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes the secret/rogue agent genre.

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1 person found this helpful

Action packed 3 for one

Let me start off with this is not my normal genre of books. Looked interesting so I picked them up as a good value.
I am guessing that was why but I had a real hard time getting involved in this series.
The first book turned out to be a pretty good story that I was involved in by the end. Slow to start but finished well.
After learning who was who in the first book, I expected to follow the second book better. That was not the case. This book was hard to follow from beginning to end. Way to many twists and turns and jumping around for my taste. Almost could not finish it.
The third book got better. Still not as good as the first but worth the read.
Overall, I liked the series but think it could have been better.
For the most part the narration was good. Voice fit the characters and good variation between characters.

If this is your kind of story, there is no better way to get into a series than a box set.

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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A good listen

Frank Bowen series books 1 -3.
I found all 3 to be a little basic on plot and dialogue. But a good read nonetheless and very easy to listen to. The plot is pretty good and main character is likeable though a bit shallow.
Narration is good.
I received a free copy of this audio book at my own request and voluntarily leave this review.

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An entertaining set of conspiracy thrillers

The Frank Bowen Conspiracy Thrillers is a box set with three entertaining books about an ordinary seeming man who gets involved in intrigue and becomes a sort of James Bond like character as a result.

The narrator does a good job bringing the books to life.

I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook. This is my honest and voluntary review.

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Lots of action with unexpected twists and turns.

This is the first time I have listened (read) a spy thriller. This series catches your attention straight away and has lots of twists and turns. I liked how they covered all potential “baddies” with the character traits we can expect of them.
If you like action movies like Jason Bourne or James Bond, then this book is for you.

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It gets better

*****CONTAINS SPOILERS******

Book 1 - False Flag
I found this story a bit hard to follow. There were so many characters and organizations to keep track of that I really did not get who's who and who is good or bad. However, it was how Frank Bowen got himself into the line of work and sets the basis for the rest of the series. If I read this book on it's own, i think I would have given it only 2 stars, but luckily I got the box set, and the stories do get better.

Book 2 - Pandora Red
This was another complicated book with lots of organizations and characters to try and keep track of. I liked the Liberatus angle that was added, but it sort of got washed out by all the other things happening in the book. I also started off really disliking Frank, pretending to do everything for his family, but actually just being absent when he is at home with all the "I work hard so when I'm at home I just want a beer and relax" stuff. It made it a bit hard to believe that he was so concerned for the well being of his family when they were kidnapped. Maybe that's just me though.

Book 3 - Ghost Order
This was by far my favourite book and definitely saved the series. On it's own, I think it would be a solid 4 star read. The author has found his rhythm and this book was less involved (not as many organizations/characters) but at the same time more focused and it made it a lot easier to become absorbed by the story in stead of trying to constantly figure out who is who. I would like to see more stories involving Liberatus.

About the narrator
When I finished listening to the last book, I really thought "wow, this narrator was really good" and gave him 4 stars for his performance, but then as I typed this reveiw I realised that I really hated the way he made Maria sound. So nasally and nagging all the time that you actually dislike her immensely. I also listened to the audiobook at 1.35x because the narrator's pace was way too slow for this type of adventure thriller. So unfortunately I dropped his score down.

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Awesome collection of compelling thrillers...

FALSE FLAG (BOOK 1)
I began this book thinking I would just go through a couple of chapters before bed – I was SO wrong. I was hooked from the beginning and had to keep going until I finished the last sentence. This is a great story that clips along as a brisk pace, it is filled with suspense and there are such interesting characters to fuel the action. The lead character, Frank, comes into some money and decides to take a bit of time to travel. What follows is an adventure filled with conspiracy, action, and first-rate globe-trotting excitement that will forever change the course of Frank’s life.

PANDORA RED (BOOK 2)
This is the second Frank Bowen thriller and it takes place about 8 years after the events of False Flag. During the intervening years, Frank has trained relentlessly for his field position with MI6 and had some adventures about which he reminisces briefly in this story which takes him to Central America and Cuba as he and his team search for a rogue data analyst codenamed Pandora. This analyst has uncovered a vast governmental conspiracy centered around covert intelligence-gathering and surveillance of the general public. At immense risk to her personal safety and at the cost of her career, this dauntless young woman makes a copy of the top-secret files outlining the plans for instituting this surveillance and makes a run for it. Reminiscent of the Edward Snowden saga, this is a fast-paced thriller featuring a lone whistleblower on the run whilst trying to get information to the masses about the government-sanctioned infringement of civil liberties and personal privacy. Our hero, Frank, is dispatched with a team of MI6 agents to recover the data and the analyst but nothing goes as planned and the adventure, danger, and suspense fuel a wild and harrowing ride to the very end.

GHOST ORDER (BOOK 3)
Jay Tinsiano gives us another fast-paced, action-filled thriller with Frank Bowen as the lead character. Rest assured that when Frank is called into play, the assignment, no matter how straightforward it may seem, will always go off the rails with high adventure and plenty of twists and turns to hold your attention from start to finish. In this story, Frank is tasked with escorting an asset from one location to another. That sounds easy enough, but the journey that follows is filled with unexpected dangers, intrigue, and players whose loyalties are not what they seem.

The narrator, Chris MacDonnell, gave a stellar performance in all three of these stories. His accent adds to the atmosphere of these spy thrillers but, additionally, he offers the listener a brilliant repertoire of vocal characterizations for the various individuals in the stories and he keeps the pace and cadence of his delivery consistent with the situations in which the characters find themselves. Well-written and beautifully narrated – what more can we ask for?

While I did purchase a copy of each of these books, I was provided with a copy of the audiobook collection of all 3 books by the author and I am voluntarily offering this honest and unbiased review.

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