Protect and Defend

Despite Guidall's best efforts, Flynn's words are so flat and his characters and plot so contrived and mechanical that it's hard to imagine who might actually enjoy this listening chore. The subject is certainly timely: what should the U.S. government do to defuse the Iranian nuclear program? Flynn's solution is to have top secret counterterrorism expert Mitch Rapp try to destabilize the Iranian government-a plan which goes wrong when his boss, CIA chief Irene Kennedy, is kidnapped. Guidall does manage to catch some of the sadness in Rapp's heart as he thinks about the loss of his family in a previous novel. But Guidall can't rewrite Flynn's words-very few of which give Rapp any semblance of human feeling. Simultaneous release with the Atria hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 24).