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    The Lions of Lucerne
    The Lions of Lucerne
    The Lions of Lucerne
    Audiobook15 hours

    The Lions of Lucerne

    Written by Brad Thor

    Narrated by Armand Schultz

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    In his daring and chilling first novel, #1 New York Times bestselling author Brad Thor draws us into a sinister labyrinth of political intrigue and international terrorism, serving up an explosive cocktail of unrelenting action as one man is pushed to the edge.

    On the snow-covered slopes of Utah, the President of the United States has been kidnapped and his Secret Service detail massacred. Only one agent has survived—ex-Navy SEAL Scot Harvath. He doesn’t buy the official line that Middle Eastern terrorists are behind the attack and begins his own campaign to find the truth and exact revenge. But now, framed for murder by a sinister cabal, Harvath takes his fight to the towering mountains of Switzerland—and joins forces with beautiful Claudia Mueller of the Swiss Federal Attorney’s Office. Together they must brave the subzero temperatures and sheer heights of treacherous Mount Pilatus—where their only chance for survival lies inside the den of the most lethal team of professional killers the world has ever known…
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateNov 6, 2012
    ISBN9781442360358
    Author

    Brad Thor

    Brad Thor is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-three thrillers, including Dead Fall, Black Ice (ThrillerFix Best Thriller of the Year), Near Dark (one of Suspense Magazine’s Best Books of the Year), Backlash (nominated for the Barry Award for Best Thriller of the Year), Spymaster (named “One of the all-time best thriller novels” —The Washington Times), The Last Patriot (nominated Best Thriller of the Year by the International Thriller Writers association), and Blowback (one of the “Top 100 Killer Thrillers of All Time” —NPR). Visit his website at BradThor.com and follow him on Facebook @BradThorOfficial, on Instagram @RealBradThor, and on X @BradThor.

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    Reviews for The Lions of Lucerne

    4.5/5

    486 ratings33 reviews

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    • 3/5
      After I had caught up on the Gabriel Allon series by Daniel Silva, I was looking to start another series in the spy/thriller genre. Brad Thor and his Scot Harvath series was recommended to me by my brother-in-law and I enjoy this first installment. I don't think the writing is on the same level as Daniel Silva, but the story was entertaining. I think what makes the Allon series so enjoyable is that things do not always go right. The main characters are flawed, and you want to know about them on a personal level in addition to the plot of each novel. In Thor's book, the main character falls into the stereotype of the hero who can survive anything, joke at even the most tense moments, and get out of scrapes and danger that seem to appear every few minutes. It reminds me a bit of Clive Cussler and the Dirk Pitt series in that sense, although that series does not take itself as seriously.

      Short version - I enjoyed it enough to continue the series.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 2/5
      The two stars I am giving this book is for a plot that moves along and is interesting enough to keep you reading. It is a typical airport thriller and is adequate in that sense. What I disliked about this story was the main character and the dialogue. I can't stand Scot Harvath. He is a poorly written, poorly constructed stereotype. It is like the author watched a really good James Bond movie and then tried to apply those characteristics to his main character and failed abysmally. Harvath is a Secret Service agent who in the first chapter of the book allows almost 30 agents under his supervision to be massacred and the President of the United States to be kidnapped.After saving the President's daughter by being the only Secret service agent to survive an avalanche, he bucks every order given by his superiors and heads out on a mission to recover POTUS. In so doing, he is able to foil every attempt at assassination that comes his way while also outrunning the FBI, CIA and Secret Service who also want to reel him back in and hold him accountable. I knew the story had jumped the rails early when Harvath, a Navy Seal who also happened to be a former Olympic skier was caught in an avalanche without a recovery beacon. There is no way that a Secret Service agent would allow a president and his family to ski a black diamond run known as "The Death Chute" without having rescue beacons on everyone.As a Navy Seal and member of the Secret Service, he would have had a very real sense of discipline and chain of command. Even James Bond was written with that aspect of his personality. Though Harvath is a quintessentially American cowboy, he lacks any sense of discipline and therefore any sense of realism. He spent the entire book going off half cocked and telling everyone off.To that end, the author attempted to have Harvath begin or end battle scenes, fight scenes or kills with a quip. Again, that may work in a James Bond movie but read Fleming - Bond isn't written that way and it works even less for this character. I have to admit, by the end of the book I was actually rooting for the assassins to take this ass out!He also made a mockery of the Swiss agent that ended up helping Harvath. Aside from concentrating on her "beauty", she kept getting into situations where Harvath would inevitably save her. Please. If she was a trained agent, she would be much better than the way she was written and would surely know what the six o'clock position is when working with a partner.I don't know if the author has a deal with business but the number of times labels and brand names were dropped into the story was excessive. In addition, there were plenty of loose ends and gaps in the story that made me wonder why they were introduced at all.Of course the end result is that it is all wrapped up in a nice bow with Harvath getting a promotion and the stage being set for more ridiculous stories to be presumably bought by Tom Cruise to star in at a later date as agent Scot Harvath. I'm always looking for a storyteller with great action and a gripping story. I think I'm going to keep looking. This just didn't hit the mark for me.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Really enjoyed the story line and the narrator of this book. It has hooked me to listens to the next one.
    • 2/5
      How many thriller novel plots will involve the President of the United States? Come on guys think of some new plot characters. Nothing new here. There is a conspiracy, the US president is kidnapped and his secret service agent (Scot Harvath) is made the fall guy. It is fast paced and a page turner. An average read.
    • 3/5
      My first experience with Thor after reading all of Vince Flynn's stuff. I liked it. His main character, Scot Harvath, was believable, not superhuman, and the settings in the book were fantastic. This one took a while to get started and had movie-scripting written all over some parts. But, I will certainly read more Thor and see if he can live up to the high standards Flynn has set for me.
    • 3/5
      Another special agent of the government caught in the fray and attempting to set things right. Good read plan to read the next book in the series to get a better sense of the character and the progression of the books
    • 3/5
      The writing is bad. Not horrendous, but bad. The author has a hard time keeping the point of view straight and we pop from seeing the world through the eyes of the currently highlighted character (usually Harvath) to the feelings of the person he just hit... sorry, we can't be in the head of the puncher and the punchee at the same time and still have any sense of suspense. I'm used to over-the-top characters. I love Jack Reacher and he can do anything - but Reacher just goes ahead and does what he needs to do, he doesn't spend a page or two tooting his horn first.Yeah, Thor, I get it... Horvath is FAN-TASTIC... but please stop whacking me with his multiple skills, especially when he follows up each of his Herculean feats with a great act of stupidity. I like kick-butt heroes. I like vigilantes. I don't like characters where the author has to spend more time talking about how wonderfully powerful/exciting/perfect they are, than actually having them act in this way.
    • 4/5
      My husband finally convinced me to read some Brad Thor. I couldn't put it down. Harvath is a great hero.
    • 3/5
      Nice story, but the ending is spoiled by bad politics. I've enjoyed listening to the story, it's masterfully done, but my enjoyment was spoiled in the end when it turned out that the whole plot was hatched by the bad oil-and-gas people trying to preserve their billions from green energy legislation. When you listen to Vince Flynn, you hear a patriotic story and the author and main heroes are believable. A part of this is because of a realistic choice of bad guys, such as Al-Qaeda terrorists, etc. Here completely unrealistic choice of bad guys and bringing left-wing politics into the mix spoils the enjoyment. If 97% of the story is written for one half of the country, while the ending is going to be pleasing for another half -- nobody is going to be happy. One needs to chose his audience.
    • 4/5
      Promising new character from a promising new author.
    • 3/5
      Fun and enjoyable read.
    • 3/5
      The Lions of Lucerne by Brad Thor is a quick and enjoyable read. Scot Harvath, an ex-Navy SEAL, is a Secret Service agent on the Presiden'ts detail. At the end of a day of skiing, the weather turns bad and the President is kidnapped. Harvath - a stereotypical wisecracking, hardass federal agent - spends the rest of the book looking for the President and the guns-for-hire behind the kidnapping. Along the way Harvath is framed for murder, discovers that not all the agents working on the case can be trusted, meets a beautiful Swiss attorney, and eventually discovers the conspiracy against the president involves some of Washington's most influential people.Although I enjoyed the book well enough as I read it, I must admit that as I try to write this review - two weeks after finishing the book - I don't remember very much about the book. The characters are thinly drawn and somewhat stereotypical. The plotting is fairly poor. After the initial kidnapping, the book seemed to move in fits and starts. And, everytime the hero, Scot Harvath, made a wisecrack, I imagined that the author was trying just a little too hard to write a book that would become a movie.
    • 5/5
      Awesome read. Brad Thor has ascended closer to the top of my new favorite authors list.
    • 1/5
      Uhm...not sure where to start to convey all the ways this struck me as ludicrous. I read it because it was recommended in the Suspense part of The Ultimate Reading List. I probably should have been warned it wasn't for me when I saw blurbs praising it by Vince Flynn of Term Limits and Glenn Beck. But hey, as it turned out it wasn't that it was outre right-wing that turned me off, but that when it comes down to it I'm the kind of gal who believes Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. I find it easy to believe US Senators could be corrupt and in league with a filthy rich industrialist prepared to suborn them. I find it very easy to believe in politicians who are hiding sexual proclivities that would appall their constituents. What I do find hard to believe is that to defeat a bill in Congress they'd conspire to assassinate Secret Service agents and kidnap the American president and frame the surviving agent for murder. What I do find hard to believe is a US Senator who to cover up a homosexual affair puts a hit on his lover. Not impossible to believe the above mind you--just hard. It doesn't help that this book is abysmally written in a style I find headache inducing. We're talking head-hopping, intrusive dialogue tagging, jarring frequent F-bombs, designer label name-dropping and awkwardly constructed sentences that don't flow--and Barbie Doll "gorgeous" love interest and indestructible Marty Stu ex-SEAL Olympic-class skier protagonist Scot Harvath. The characters are onion-skin thin and the plot ridden with unbelievable coincidence. This is the kind of book I wish I could give negative stars to. It's not just I "didn't like it"--I hated this book and found it painful to read far into it.
    • 5/5
      one of Brad's best that I have read. thank you
    • 3/5
      I did not read this novel completely by choice. I got caught in a long-wait situation without a book--it can only happen when I’m using someone else’s car--so I ducked into a used bookstore. That meant buying a standalone or the first in a series, because I already own the next book in line of any series I enjoy. I chose the first Scot Harvath book.I have mixed feeling on this effort. It contained multiple transgressions of the single thing I hate most: the seasoned professional whose does incredibly stupid things. The worst example has the narrative explain how the hero studies the faces in any public place he enters, and the scene closes with someone he has reason to be suspicious of leaving the room unnoticed with his sabotage complete. But, when I put those things aside, it was a page-turner and raced to the end. I’ll buy the next one eventually because Thor has become a bestseller. The faults of a first-time novelist have presumably been corrected.
    • 4/5
      Very good first book in a series. I'm happy to have discovered this author. Think Vince Flynn meets James Bond. I was initially upset that the nominal villain is an oil tycoon fighting against a green-energy initiative, but this is essentially inconsequential to the plot (plus the book was written well before green energy has become a symbol of political cronyism worthy of a separate novel). You get all the elements: the plucky hero, the beautiful woman, the larger-than-life villain(s), the great international locations, and LOTS of action. Highly enjoyable, old-fashioned fun.
    • 1/5
      Poorly written dialogue with some terrible one-liners; narrator's linguistic skills are lacking; protagonist comes off lucky more than well trained; action sequences leave much to be desired; the "elite" bad guys go down without much of a fight, lame; within a few minutes of each other, the final two bad guys both monologue instead of just taking care of business, resulting in their demise. THIS IS NOWHERE NEAR THE LEVEL OF A VINCE FLYNN NOVEL!! Don't waste your time!
    • 4/5
      Not bad. Bit chunky in places. A lost Pres of the US, dareing do and all that.
    • 5/5
      This was my first Brad Thor book and wont certainly be my last. Very fast pased novel, extrememly well developed characters and was difficult to put it down. Read It!
    • 4/5
      A recent stay in Myrtle Beach, SC gave me the opportunity to devour a couple of Brad Thor's adventure yarns. The Lions of Lucerne is one of Brad's best books. Lions is focused on the escapades of ex-SEAL Secret Service Agent Scot Harvath and the kidnapping of the President.Thor does stretch credibility with some of the conspiracies and plot twists within our government. The reader also has to suspend reality abit when it comes to the bad guys trying to kill Harvath as he unravels the plot twists. As one of the bad guys puts it, Scot seems to have more lives than a cat. Of course, Thor doesn't let Harvath escape totally unscathed. He gets wounded, nearly drowned, and suffers hypothermia. He gets kicked, punched and bruised over most of his body all the while pursuing and being pursued a cross 2 continents . But of course, by the next encounter Harvath has healed/ recovered just enough to put down a bad guy or rescue his beautiful companion!The overall result is a book that isn't in the genre of great literature but you will have a hard time putting down. Have some fun and give it a read!
    • 4/5
      This was an excellent, action-packed thriller. The characters, actions and organizations are all very believable despite the pretense at the beginning of the novel. The main character, Harvath, seems to be untouchable with a proverbial 9 lives. When he backs himself into a corner and it seems like its the end, he overcomes the situation and carries on. I can't wait to start the next book in the series!
    • 1/5
      I hate to quit a book so I made myself finish…..who is this book for? When a Henry XIII reference had to be explained, I wondered if it was a YA book.
      Scott doesn’t seem a former SEAL. Perhaps I’m comparing him to the Gray Man, Orphan X or the Pilgrim……hard acts to follow indeed! Was hoping to find another in those veins. This author was recommended, I hope I just picked the wrong one by starting at the beginning. I’ll give him one more try.
    • 2/5
      This was a very generic thriller, and frankly, I think you can tell its his first book. The plot moves along pretty well but the dialogue and characterizations is just choppy. I should also flag that there's some casual bias against Middle Eastern cultures in a couple places of this book that definitely feels abrasive.
    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this novel by Brad Thor. The fact that the plot is considered far fetched by many others does not bother me. It is a work of fiction and really does not have to be realistic, just entertaining. I was thoroughly entertained as it gave me an opportunity to escape from reality for a bit. I admired how well Thor connected all the interactions of the characters and tied everything together from front to back cover. This is the kind of adventurous fiction I enjoy reading.
    • 5/5
      This book was absolutely amazingThe Lions of Lucerne is the first book in a series of books in the Scot Harvath series.Harvath is the sole survivor of a massacre committed by people who have kidnapped the President of the United States, Harvath learns he is being framed for the murder of the Presidents' Secret Service agents, he travels to Switzerland to confrot the enemy.lions of Lucerne will take you on an action packed thrill ride from start to finish.
    • 4/5
      Scot Harvath's first adventure, as he tracks down the kidnapped President. Excellent first time book from Thor. The action really doesn't stop from the moment you open the book. One of the more impressive aspects of Thor's storytelling, is that he has been to the places he writes about and knows them intimately - and has a way of putting you right smack dab in the locations to watch the action unfold.
    • 2/5
      After reading Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp series, I was really disappointed with this author and this book. Harvath comes across as a low IQ doofus. Like so many current authors, Brad Thor cannot help pushing his far-left liberal sjw agenda. Vince Flynn is a 9.8/10, I am being generous to assign 2/10 to Brad Thor's effort.
    • 5/5
      wonderfully written and a really fun, quick read. can't wait to read more of his stuff.
    • 4/5
      Jack Ryan, system-bucking analyst for the CIA, must penetrate a far-reaching conspiracy to save the world from nuclear annihilation! Oh, wait! It's not Jack Ryan, it's Scot Harvath. It's not analyst for CIA, it's Secret Service agent (and former SEAL). It's not saving the world from nuclear annihilation, it's saving the president from kidnappers!In many ways, this is a me-too techno-thriller that doesn't really scale the heights of other similar novels. However, it's still an effective and satisfying story. Folks who like the techno-thriller genre will enjoy this novel too, but they probably won't be hailing Brad Thor as the new master of international suspense.I was a little bit worried at the pretentiousness implied by the caveat at the beginning that names, places, and procedures had been altered ... in the interests of national security. Uh, please, give me a break.