The Rescue

Written by Steven Konkoly

Narrated by Thom Rivera

An Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestseller.

For fans of Tom Clancy and Lee Child, a heart-pumping thriller of betrayal, revenge, and conspiracy by USA Today bestselling author Steven Konkoly.

Former CIA operative turned mercenary for hire Ryan Decker’s specialty is rescuing kidnap victims. Hired by an influential US senator to liberate her daughter from a human-trafficking ring, Decker never anticipated sabotage or that the assault could go so disastrously wrong. The hostage is dead. His team is wiped out, and so are their families, including Decker’s own wife and son—eliminated one by one by the Russian mafia. And he’s survived to take the fall.

When he’s inexplicably freed soon into a ten-year sentence in federal prison, Decker suspects another setup. And private investigator Harlow Mackenzie knows he’s right. She has evidence that a power greater than the Russian mob was behind the raid that ruined Decker’s life.

The next move in a nationwide cat-and-mouse game of high-level sedition is up to them. Fueled by revenge and an obsession to clear his name, Decker has only one mission: to destroy a growing conspiracy before it’s too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Apr 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781721356812

Steven Konkoly

Steven Konkoly is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author. A graduate of the US Naval Academy and veteran of several elite US Navy and Marine Corps units, Konkoly has brought his in-depth military experience to bear in his fiction. His novels include The Rescue and The Raid in the Ryan Decker series; the Black Flagged conspiracy saga; and the speculative postapocalyptic thrillers The Jakarta Pandemic, The Perseid Collapse, and the Fractured State series. Konkoly lives in central Indiana with his family. For more information, visit www.stevenkonkoly.com.

Reviews for The Rescue

[benuathanasia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The ending was a bit abrupt for my taste. Some closure as to what happened to the "good" kidnapper would have been nice, as well.

[edwardsgt · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fast-paced all-action thriller which stretches credulity if you stop to think about the plot. Characters are mostly stereotypical of the genre and there are few plot surprises or twists.

[jenniferrobb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5 stars (some sites do not allow half stars so rating may vary). This was my Amazon First pick for March 2019. It's action-packed, that's for sure. I do agree with some other reviewers that there isn't a lot of character definition in this novel--it didn't really bother me much while reading it however.Ryan Decker is dealing with the fallout of a rescue mission gone bad that sent him to prison. Though attempts have been made on his life while he's incarcerated, Decker has survived. He's unexpectedly freed from prison only to have an attempt made on his life that same day! One of the girls Decker saved from a life of trafficking comes to his rescue--she and her team.It was good to see a group of capable women in a thriller--they do have slightly different skill sets than Decker, and it's never really explained how they came by some of them. Some can be taught, but others . . . Careful as they tried to be, however, it was silly of them to go grocery shopping without disguising themselves. With all the skills they have, no one thinks or or can manage that? Or how about ordering from Amazon or InstaCart etc. and having it delivered to the house rather than risking going out? As with most thrillers, you do start to wonder how many times one man can survive such attacks and not be injured.I did appreciate that the profanity was kept to a minimum and there were no sex scenes (though there was some narrative about sex trafficking as part of the plot).

[darcia_10 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The Rescue has been getting a ton of early praise. Unfortunately, I won't be joining that party train, so feel free to boo me if you must.This book and I were simply a bad match. All the things I love in a book just aren't here.The biggest problem for me revolves around the absence of character development. For me to invest in a story, I have to care about, or at least get to know, the characters. That doesn't happen. Instead, we have a ton of narrating characters, some who matter a lot more than others, and we don't learn much about any of them, aside from how well they shoot.The entire book is plot-driven, relying on a lot of action, all the time. And this brings me back to the lack of character development. I didn't feel any balance between the characters as people and the constant action propelling things forward.And, finally, the action was over-the-top superhero kind of stuff.This book is being compared to Lee Child's Jack Reacher Series. It is absolutely not comparable. Jack Reacher's character is, from the start, complex and well developed. Readers fell in love with Jack Reacher first, and the plots second. Those books have balance. This one does not. The Rescue relies on action only, which is fine if that's your thing. It's just not mine.