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    Hawke
    Hawke
    Hawke
    Audiobook16 hours

    Hawke

    Written by Ted Bell

    Narrated by John Shea

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    "Hawke is a fast-paced adventure...truly an exciting read," says Nelson DeMille. "Rich, spellbinding, and absorbing, Hawke is packed with surprises," raves Clive Cussler. Readers beware, this stunning, high-caliber thriller is not recommended for the faint of heart.

    Lord Alexander Hawke is a direct descendant of the legendary English pirate Blackhawke and highly skilled in the cutthroat's deadly ways himself. While still a boy, on a voyage to the Caribbean, Alex Hawke witnesses an act of unspeakable horror. Hidden in a secret compartment on his father's yacht, Alex sees his parents brutally murdered by three modern-day pirates. It is an event that will haunt him for the remainder of his life.

    Now, fully grown and one of England's most decorated naval heroes, Hawke is back in the same Caribbean waters on a secret mission for the American government. A highly experimental stealth submarine, built by the Soviets just before the end of the Cold War, is missing. She carries forty nuclear warheads and is believed to be in the hands of a very unstable government just ninety miles from the American mainland. Hawke is in a race against time. His mission: Find the deadly sub before a preemptive strike can be launched against the U.S., and confront the murderous men behind the personal nightmare that haunts him before they find him first.

    Featuring breathtaking action, international intrigue, and a hero worthy of the very finest adventure fiction, Hawke heralds the exciting debut of a bold new talent.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateMar 6, 2018
    ISBN9781543643664
    Hawke
    Author

    Ted Bell

    Ted Bell was the former vice-chairman of the board and creative director of Young & Rubicam, one of the world’s largest advertising agencies. He was the New York Times bestselling author of the Alex Hawke series. Ted Bell passed away in 2023.

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    Reviews for Hawke

    3.5/5

    230 ratings19 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Great storyline really enjoyed the book. I will be looking for other of his books
      Bob
    • 4/5
      The convergence of the character development and background buildup was worth the journey. Enjoyed the special ops aspects as well.
    • 4/5
      Hawke (2003) (Hawke #1) by Ted Bell. h title character is Lord Alexander Hawke. Rich and famous, one of England’s most decorated naval heroes, he is the dream central character for this series of adventure books. This book sets out to set up the characters, define past troubles, give us a world threat, bring in the Russians and Cubans as the bad guys (both very relevant almost twenty years ago) and toss in a love interest.It is a good fun read. The characters are sympathetic and likable, determined and, in the case of the bad guys, evil, evil, evil. We start in the past when Alex, who has just turned seven, sees the unthinkable happen in front of his eyes. It is so terrible that he erases it from his memory.Thankfully it also means he then lives with his grandfather,a retired Admiral of the Realm, and grows up have fantastic, bold adventures. He enters the Royal Navy and continues to excel in every bit of harsh training thrown his way. He also becomes super rich and garners very loyal friends, both people he has met on the way and employees he treats with respect and who therefore admire him.In any ways he reminds me of Batman sans cape and cowl.Three evil bothers have managed to place themselves as generals and admirals within the Cuban military and are close allies with Castro. But they have plans for a new revolution, with the help of a few, powerful renegade Russians and the arms they are selling. Specifically, one stealth submarine holding 40 nuclear missiles, now located off the coast of Cuba.Hawke mission, as he frequently works with both the British and American governments in solving tricky problems, is to destroy the sub. His personal agenda is about retribution against those who caused his nightmares.This is a fast paced action tale. Hawke is being pitched as a modern day Bond, but with an almost unlimited amount of funds at his instant disposal, and a team of heroic cutthroats willing to go into Hell for him, but without the resemblance to Hoagy Carmichael.
    • 1/5
      In the quest for a superhero, the author has given his character too much history and too many qualifications. The writing seemed to come from an amateur, obsessed with John Wayne and James Bond. The pages seemed to be a collection of clichés, interrupted by name dropping. I wonder if by the end of the book, he named every star in Hollywood. I didn't even like the title. After reading 10%, I gave up.
    • 5/5
      Alex Hawke's story is captivating and exciting. You will be swept away by the young boy who loses his family and the life he lives because of that fateful day. Ted Bell is a fabulous author. I highly recommend his work! Start with Hawke and enjoy a thrilling ride.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this book! There's nothing like a good adventure/suspense/thriller! After all, that's why the Bond series is still thrilling audiences. Bell's character, "Hawke" fills just such a position. He has it all. Looks, wealth, skills that border on unbelievable and pull with those in power. This first novel in the Alex Hawke series was a great get-away for those times when you just need to kick back and enjoy the ride. I'd recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Ian Fleming, Clive Cussler or even James Rollins.
    • 4/5
      Fast paced and an easy read. This is my first book by Bell and I think I'd like to read more. His Alex Hawk is just on the edge of unbelievable, but Bell pulls it off.
    • 1/5
      Today's book is given to you by the letter "C." Cheesy, campy, cartoony and cliche-ridden. We meet Lord Alexander Hawke, the "hero" of this novel in the prologue when he's seven-years-old. Pirates board his family yacht in search of a treasure map. Apparently a descendent of the original owner of the treasure centuries ago just happens to catch wind that the descendent of the privateer that supposedly stole it is sailing on his yacht, and Alex's father, who doesn't know this nevertheless thinks to put the treasure map into his son's pocket before hiding him when he suspects there are intruders aboard. Quel coincidence! Alex watches while pirates festooned with a spider tattoo that spouts a sprinkling of cartoon villain Spanish murders his parents. The orphan is then raised by his grandfather and grows up "a expert in the art of blowing things up and killing people silently with a knife or one's bare hands." When we next see Alex all grown up, he takes on three punks, breaking a clavicle of one who blocks his way and taking on him and his friends with relish. Oh, and the villain? He's lost all color in his iris because he was held in the darkness too long. See what I mean about cartoony and campy? Also, too many exclamation points. And much, much too much testosterone.
    • 3/5
      The Prologue and the last 10 or so chapters pulled this book from a two star to a three star. Had the middle part been cut down to about 50-100 pages, Ted Bell’s “Hawke” would have been a much tighter, more exciting novel.Alexander Hawke is a very unoriginal character. He’s a dashing good looking British multi-millionaire with butlers, a huge yacht, a seaplane and a super-charged speed boat (both of which fit into the yacht, don’t you know). Not only is he all that, but both the British and US governments hire him from time to time to take on secret missions for them. Really? So Hawke can handle missions better than the MI6, the CIA, etc.?We start off meeting Hawke out on his family’s yacht when he’s barely seven. Hawke’s ancestry includes the infamous Blackbeard, so they’re down in the Caribbean looking for treasure with the legendary pirate’s map. Bad guy Cubans sneak on board and brutally kill Hawke’s parents (Blackbeard had killed their ancestors so they wanted revenge). His father puts the child into a small locker for protection just as the pirates board the ship. Hawke sees the murders undetected and is found three days later by authorities. He grows up with his great grandfather and becomes an all-everything, suppressing the horror he saw as a child.It’s the next 400 pages that could have been reduced significantly. He’s hired by the US State Department to look into the sale of some Russian weaponry to Cuba. Very quickly, he discovers what’s been sold and alerts America. Cuba gets taken over (ironically by the same three pirates—brothers—who killed Hawke’s parents) and an American sailor serving at Guantanamo Bay is coerced into getting a biological weapon inside the base. Hawke’s girlfriend survives a bomb explosion at a restaurant, then she’s abducted, etc., etc. It’s only the last 175 that really ramps up with action.I’ve not given up on Ted Bell or his Hawke character yet, but I won’t plod through another if it gets bogged down as the first one did. I’m hoping that now the deal with him remembering what happened to his parents is over, his next adventures will be tighter.I also found it odd that Bell would sometimes inject a piece of dialect within dialogue, but not consistently. For example, there’s a Bahamian speaking and right in the middle of the paragraph we get a “dat” and a “mon.” But elsewhere when he speaks, we read “that.” I say you go all or nothing.
    • 2/5
      Fair, I guess. As an earlier reviewer mentioned, the use of "Britishisms" is often borderline absurd. It certainly can get to be annoying. And while I assume the author was going for his version of James Bond, I found some of it beyond sensible. Primarily, I found Hawke's thoughts and behavior after making his "breakthrough" wholly unbelievable and out of character. SPOILER ALERT! The woman he is supposedly madly in love with is dead, but he feels "exquisitely light" and "buoyant" because he's remembered that he witnessed his parents being brutally murdered? This is utterly unbelievable. Never mind his lover's "death," no one would feel buoyant after finally getting back the suppressed memory of their parents' horrific torture and murder. If you somehow can overlook this absurd bit of the story, and if you don't mind reading trite expressions like "old boy," that have been repeated ad nauseum, then by all means, read the book.
    • 2/5
      Ummm... this book is so boring and long-winded and full of itself and so pseudo-British: chap, fellow, tip, nip, bobby, copper ... and the list of Britishisms that the author uses is ridiculous. It's like he thinks that every British person speaks with every idiosyncrasy of their language. They don't. They might call a man a bloke, and a cop a copper but they don't also call him a chap and a bobby and... oh the list goes on. I have no idea if Ted Bell is British or not, or if he's ever even been to England, or if he learned all his Britishisms from Coronation Street. But, anyway, this book is so ridiculous in its writing style that I can't even get into what the plot is like.Superman meets the Thunderbirds meets Prince Charles = Hawke.
    • 1/5
      a vast collection of trite expressions and wide variety of dialogue styles none of which ring true. Worst book I've read this year.
    • 1/5
      Fast paced but very disappointing thriller. Main characters are English and Ted Bell, an American, is a million miles from being able to write English voices. Lady Penelope (the puppet)in the kids TV show "Thunderbirds" was bad, but more realistic than "Hawke". Most of the "Thunderbirds" plot lines were better as well! Sterotype characters and scenes. Lots of inaccurate technical details which always destroy books for me. It seems to sell well, but God knows why... Scores very high on the crapometer.
    • 1/5
      Hawke is a superman: rich, intelligent, strong, handsome, fast, and completely unbelievable
    • 4/5
      I don't know about you, but the longer an author's backlist is, the more hesitant I am to begin reading a series. One the bright side, you won't be waiting on pins and needles for a sequel, but there's a lot of territory to catch up on. I've been buying Ted Bell's Alexander Hawke thrillers since the very first one was published. Now that there are five books in this series, I've finally gotten around to reading the first one. Debut novels are often rough. I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The novel's prologue recounts what is likely the single most traumatic experience of Alex Hawke's life--the cold-blooded murder of his parents when he was seven years old. Young Alex witnessed the whole thing, but has blocked the events from his memory. It's a terrible start on life, but Alex has a few advantages as well. He's the scion of a wealthy and influential British family. He's raised by a loving grandfather and given all the best advantages in life. After the prologue we meet the adult Alex Hawke. In addition to being a captain of industry, he does covert jobs for the British and American governments. That's not as random as it seems. As a younger man, Alex had served with distinction in the special forces of the military. He has ties to the rich and powerful everywhere. And business interests around the globe provide the ideal cover for his presence in hot spots. In this case, the hot spot is Cuba. Hawke is instructed to find who has bought a very dangerous submarine, but what he finds in addition is a coup d'état ninety miles off the US coast. What's more, the situation has gotten very personal when the bad guys drag Hawke's girlfriend Victoria into the mix. Fortunately, Hawke has backup. Aside from the American government he's working for, he's brought his own most trusted allies. Foremost among them is Ambrose Congreve, a semi-retired Scotland Yard inspector, and Hawke's closest friend. Also, there is Stokely Jones, a former New York cop who acts as Hawke's body guard and Chief of Security. Hawke has surrounded himself with a loyal team that would go to hell and back for him. I expect we'll get to know each of them better as the series progresses. As I mentioned above, it's a strong debut. The writing is fine and the pacing is good. The plot featured some good twists and turns, and even had a fun buried pirate treasure sub-plot. Hawke's a character you can build a series around, and while his extreme wealth and other gifts are a bit preposterous, it's kind of fun to see how the other .00001 percent lives. (Was I the only one sort of picturing Richard Branson as I read the book?) There was really only one thing I had a big problem with, and oddly enough it was one of the supporting characters. Specifically, it was Stokely Jones, who spoke all of his lines in an ignorant and affected dialect. An example, "Ain't far. See all them Christmas lights hanging in the trees on that island over there? Only a couple of miles. We could swim it, but Mr. Congreve, he old fashioned." Not only is it annoying to read, I found it somewhat insulting to a minority of which I'm not a member. I really hope it gets toned down in subsequent novels. And I guess I'll find out, as based on this debut, I plan to move forward with the series. I'm looking forward to getting a better handle on Alex Hawke, and seeing how the supporting cast continues to develop.
    • 2/5
      I think that Ted Bell wanted to create the next Dirk Pitt or James Bond. Unfortunately, he tried to do too much in his first novel and, as if that didn't create enough of a problem, the book read too much like a first novel. Certain characters seemed way too contrived or stereotypical and certain plot elements seemed to simply vanish (the McGuffin disappeared far too early) or be forgotten about. Bell has some neat ideas; hopefully the next Alexander Hawke novel will be better. I'm willing to give it a try (although I'm not quite sure why...).
    • 4/5
      I read this after having read subsequent books featuring Alex Hawke. Even knowing the outcome of this opening novel, I still enjoyed the read. I prefer the audio versions of Bell's books, though.
    • 3/5
      This is an interesting book, though not my standard fare. I admit I picked it up when I saw a description of a pirate in the book flap. Also the title being about a bird, I was drawn in to the story.It starts slow, granting details as this is the first book of this series. It establishes a well traveled and knowledgeable main character. The villian is strong and mostly intelligent, so they work for the way the book runs. It reminds me of Bond meets Jack Sparrow. Not sure if I will continue reading this series, but it was a good read to end the year with.
    • 4/5
      Hawke was a definite departure for me—this is not the normal type of book I read. However, I did find it quite an entertaining read. Alex Hawke is a cross between a rich playboy and James Bond. This book was a romp through the Caribbean with guns and Cubans and military and kidnapping and explosions and pirates and buried gold and everything else a guy would want in a movie. In fact, it’d probably make a great action movie.One of my favorite parts was the snatch and grab mission with Thunder and Lightning, they were cool characters with a way cool job. Stokely was great, too. And Hawke’s parrot, Sniper, had too small a part.I don’t remember how I first found out about this series, but now I’m hooked and glad I bought the others (used, in hardback) for my library.