Larry Bond's First Team Audible Audiobook – Abridged

Larry Bond (Author), Jim DeFelice (Author), Scott Sowers (Narrator),

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The New York Times best-selling author of spellbinding thrillers, Larry Bond has won widespread praise for both the gritty authenticity of his military-political adventures and his matchless talent at generating edge-of-your-seat suspense. Now Bond launches an exciting new series that rockets straight from the cutting edge of America's war on terror.

Officially designated the Joint Services Special Demands Project, "the Team" is a unique unit with an almost unlimited budget, authorized to acquire vital intelligence and take immediate action, with the field officer calling the shots.

A quantity of radioactive waste being shipped across the former Soviet Union has gone missing. In the wrong hands the stolen material could be used to create a "dirty bomb" capable of killing thousands and rendering any American city uninhabitable for centuries. The clock is ticking, though the Team doesn't know it yet. Their unseen enemy has already chosen a target, the island paradise of Honolulu.

Larry Bond's First Team is a fast-paced thriller by one of America's masters of international suspense.

Listening Length

4 hours and 39 minutes
Author

Larry Bond, see all
Narrator

Scott Sowers
Audible release date

April 28 2004
Language

English
Publisher

Macmillan Audio
ASIN

B071W8RP1D
Version

Abridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	4 hours and 39 minutes
Author	Larry Bond, Jim DeFelice
Narrator	Scott Sowers
Audible.ca Release Date	April 28 2004
Publisher	Macmillan Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Abridged
Language	English
ASIN	B071W8RP1D
Best Sellers Rank	#218,991 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #1,080 in Military Thrillers (Audible Books & Originals) #1,803 in Espionage Thrillers #9,418 in Military Thrillers (Books)

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5

118 global ratings

5 star		42%
4 star		33%
3 star		19%
2 star		4%
1 star		1%

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Top reviews from Canada

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J. J Kamlani

First Team Sizzles!

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 4, 2004

Action from the first page to the last! Starts with a bang, and keeps on firing! Written as the first book of a series, the only thing missing in this book is the seriousness that we are used to seeing in Bond's earlier books.
The plot is good, considering today's regular warnings of possible terrorist attacks within the U.S. Let's just hope Bin Ladin and his evil cohorts played their best card first, on Sept. 11, 2001, and that we don't have to worry about something like this happening in the near, or distant future.
A little too much comaderie, and male bonding for a bunch of tough, action oriented Special Forces guys, but you need something to make these guys human, and not just cardboard cutouts of cartoon heroes. You get the feeling from the second chapter that this is the beginning of a series, but still, all in all, it was fun to read, if you don't take it TOO seriously.
So just sit back and enjoy the action. You'll be glad you did.

Helpful

Amazon Customer

A great read

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 1, 2004

I have read all of Larry Bond's works and found this one to be on par with each and every one of them. From the first page to the last I found the plot twists and characters to be very entertaining.

Helpful

Slick

Good, but nothing new.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 15, 2004

First off, Larry Bond and Tom Clancy are my favorite writers for fiction. However...
This is not like any of Larry Bond's first three books: Red Phoenix, Vortex, and Cauldron. It does resemble his latter two of Day of Wrath, and Enemy Within.
I found it a good book and easy to follow, but not to the level of his first three. It is fairly typical of most terrorist plotted techno-thrillers out today. It is worth buying, but only in the bargain bin or paperback.
I highly recommend Michael Farmer's "Tin Soldiers"

Helpful

Tom Ross

Huge disappointment from Larry Bond

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 27, 2004

I have been an ardent Larry Bond fan from "Red Phoenix" on and have all of his previous books in my home library. I immediately purchased this new novel as soon as available with great expectations. Alas, was not to be. This book was terribly disappointing, and a hard to finish reading. The story was choppy, the characters only cardboard cutouts that you could care less about. Nothing was in-depth and read like a book thrown together overnight by a couple of buddies over a beer. Even the hero, Ferguson, seemed more of an accident waiting to happen, and inept to say the least, to be leading a special forces strike team. Sorry Mr. Bond, but if this is the first book in a planned series, I surely hope that more thought and depth goes into the sequels. Try reading some Vince Flynn novels with hero Mitch Rapp to get the right idea of some great action stories.

Helpful

Bill G

I beg you not to read this book.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 10, 2004

I have a new "worst book I've ever read" on my list after trudging through this garbage for the last three weeks. First Team has two things going for it. First, the book summary on the jacket because that is the only hope you have of following the plot, and second, the captions beginning each chapter that indicate where the characters are.
Larry Bond's books have all been high quality novels, even though the last one he wrote wasn't as good. But he hasn't written anything in awhile then returns with this effort with co-author Jim Defilice. I don't know who wrote what, but somewhere along the line, they really botched this book up.
The story involves a team that operates outside the law tracking terrorists. It has CIA man Fergeson, two special forces memberts Rankins and Connors and a marine called Guns. They are on the trail of terrorists trying to prevent a dirty bomb being set off in the USA.
I seriously considered quitting this book after about 100 pages. At this point the problem wasn't the storytelling, but the horrendeous dialogue among the "First Team". I guess the authors were trying to add character to these people, but every other word was a joke or a lewd comment. This detracted from the story because it often seemed forced and out of place and incredibly unrealistic. I doubt soldiers trade crass jokes in the heat of battle.
The horrible dialogue tapers off somewhat and then the horrible story takes over. The authors can't describe scenery at all and do a horrible job of telling the reader why characters are in Iran, then in Russia, then split up into teams, then together. Why are they following a train? Why do they stop? How do they get to a US airbase from following a train? Those easy questions are never answered.
This book has the typical computer nerd working in a messy office at headquarters and he finds some useful info and shares it with the team in the field. Or at least I think he did. What he finds out and tracks makes no sense. The authors mention a May 11 memo. Where did this come from. Did I miss its introduction early in the novel?
The president of the USA sends a sexy 26 year old attorney who amazingly has gone through special forces training out in the field to go with the "Team" and to make all key decisions. Ridiculous.
The "authors" do a horrible job of setting up the premsis for the existence of the "First Team." They do a baq job of writing characters and dialogue. They have no clue about telling a story.
This book is horrible. Please don't read it!!!!!

Helpful

Jerry Saperstein

Awful

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 2, 2004

Just plain awful. The dialog is a non-stop string of wisecracks and one-liners; hardly the stuff that makes you believe you're reading an alleged thriller. And certainly nothing that makes you believe these characters are believable.
Oh yes, there are endless descriptions of all the weaponry and high-tech gadgetry this imaginary CIA and Special Forces combination team carries. Unfortunately it's difficult to believe they cart all this stuff around in a truck as they do their "secret" missions in places like Chechnya.
I've read other Larry Bond books and generally he's not bad.
But "Larry Bond's First Team" is just plain awful. No plot; no believable characters; no suspense; no fun. By the end of this novel - if you get that far - you may well wonder as I did, why you wasted the time. My own rationalization is that it's like getting hooked on a really bad movie. It's so bad that you can't believe it gets worse. In the case of Larry Bond's First Team. The only believable thing about it is that does keep getting worse and worse.
Jerry

Helpful

Imagerman

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 15, 2004

Well, was I ever disappointed in this latest Bond adventure. It rambled, too many characters, too many cute, non realistic comments from characters to others. Overall, just a poorly structured, rambling, mish-mash about nothing.
Larry you had better see if Larkin is still available if this is an example.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Rafal Gruszczynski

So, so...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 7, 2007

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McNab's books and "The Unit" TV series have set high standards in the special operations stories. There is more Bond and Gung-Ho in "The First Team" than real special forces tactics. Those who look for this aspect (as I did) will not be satisfied with it. The names of the weapons are there, but this is where the reality stops.

There is a lot of action indeed. And it reads quite well. The plot is interesting. Chapters are short, so a perfect book for a traveler. Still, the author has to do some more research on special forces tactics to make it better.

And...dialogs...they desperately require some improvement. Some of them are simply horrible.

Summarizing - it is OK, but I am not confident I will go for the next part of the series.

4 people found this helpful

J. Fowler

Just Brilliant!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 1, 2013

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This product is the most brilliant item I have ever bought and I really enjoy the simplicity that it brings.

Dan Berger

Not one of Bond's best, but still okay

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 12, 2020

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Larry Bond has always been strong on the global analysis and the technothriller detail - modern weapons system, comms, how tactical guys do their thing - but less so on the characters and settings. “First Team” is not one of his best books, but I like it enough to read further into this series. Those who liked Stephen Coonts’ “Deep Black” series, to which it has similarities - small team meshing high tech and top operators - will probably like this.

The team here is a loose, small assembly of spook and soldier types, operating under CIA auspices but with minimal oversight. In other words, it’s the “off the shelf” set-up adored by techno-thriller writers since Bill Casey in the 1980s: Badasses who do their thing without Congress and Washington lawyers and leaks and ethics committees and huge security bureaucracies and PR posturing gumming up the works.

I don’t love the characters. Ferguson, the lead CIA guy in the field, is not only a cliched wise-cracking, break-the-rules kind of guy, but so flip the people he works with can barely stand him. Other characters aren’t all that likeable, either, from surly Special Forces soldier Rankin to annoying White House lawyer Corinne Alston, more on her later. I do like the president, a sly, courtly Southerner, but we don’t see much of him.

Bond comes up with a gimmick for each character - Special Forces guy Conner, who sings Irish drinking songs to kill time; Manette, who was detailed to France and comes back speaking Franglais; Rankin, a surly redneck until we find out how much he reads. It seems forced, detail bolted on to characters and not flowing with the action.

Written in the early 2000s, I expect it to be a bit dated. But his writing of boy-girl matters strikes me as having been dated even when this was published. Eccentric analyst Ciello staring up at the miniskirted legs of a coworker when he falls asleep on the floor after a manic all-night work session, might be funny once, but not as much as Bond uses it. It comes off as leering.

Ditto Alston’s whole role. The plucky young gal who must establish herself in a recalcitrant all-male field was more plausible in 1974 than in 2004, when most men had dealt with women as equals or superiors in the work world for years and it was no longer a big deal.

Plus Alston doesn’t make sense to me. She’s a 26 year old lawyer who has miraculously zoomed up the ladder to become the president’s lawyer and confidante. At 26? Really? The president is turning to an almost-teenager on his most crucial, confidential and secret matters? She works hard and is honest and semi-ruthless and has his back, okay, but so are a lot of other people in Washington who have also been around the block once or twice.

To make matters worse, he maneuvers her into oversight of the team. That means effectively taking it over - from the CIA’s Deputy Director of Operations, with a career of experience and who hasn’t notably F’ed up - and then detailing herself to lead from the field.

She has no experience in either running ops or field work. If I’m a guy in the field, I resent her, and rightfully so, because she, despite being a babe, might get me killed. I don’t see how she learns tac skills and global op decision making instantly. I’m never clear why the president, who we’re supposed to like as a smart, shrewd and deft handler of people, sees fit to do this. Alston, a follow-the-rules lawyer, is more concerned with nabbing jihadis in strictly kosher ways that’ll look good at trial, than with interrogating them about the proverbial ticking bomb. It sets up predictable conflict between her and the seat-of-the-pants Ferguson, who flouts her authority. It does allow her to see what these guys really do, it’s implied (although it’s missing from the epilogue along with other follow-up I expected) she comes to understand them better, but it still strained plausibility.

Neither do we get a strong feel for the distant locales where the action takes place - Chechnya, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Iran. Bond could have done more to bring these places alive, beyond Chechnya being guerilla-war-torn and the next two being dreary post-Soviet republics. Iran seems surprisingly unforbidding. Ferguson is entertainingly improvisational in the field. Russia and its former satellites are still dangerous, but less uniformly locked down than when they were under the KGB thumb. A couple of guys with fake passports who speak Russian and lie fluidly can get a lot more done than they could have 20 years earlier.

One major factor in Bond’s defense: reviews show he’s absolutely adored by military guys themselves. Characters’ focus on the mission, on the how-to, on execution, on putting thinking before feelings, is right up that alley, as well as not paying all that much attention on exotic foreign lands. People who are there to infiltrate, blow things up and kill people might understandably not dwell on those people’s fine cuisine or interesting culture.

I liked the plot itself for aiming lower in the technothriller ticking bomb department. The bomb in question is not a nuclear one, but a dirty one, using lower-level radioactive waste easily diverted and amassed in nations without the best controls. Bond to his realism credit shows them trying to. How the bad guys try to carry this out is an interesting variation on the stolen-warhead theme.

Bond excels as always with the detail - alpha particles, gamma rays, the latest in guns and radiation detectors and such - and with the ops - how the tactical guys size up operations, what additional twists of recklessness or creativity Ferguson brings to it. Even SEALs think he has a death wish.

The story’s climactic sequences went on way too long, and Bond isn’t particularly good at making me visualize it. I started flipping through action sequences because I couldn’t really follow them.

One person found this helpful

Sci Fi Fan

Does not seem to be written by Larry Bond

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 9, 2021

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I've read 10 Larry Bond books and this is the first one I did not like and could not finish. I got up to about page 175 and realized nothing had really happened in the book - just a lot of running around and very constant joking between characters.

G. Sloan

Another Great Read!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 20, 2013

Verified Purchase

To those of you who reviewed this book with an eye towards a Clancy novel and were disappointed let me say that this is the 6th book I've read from this author and personally I like the subtle differences he puts forth within series. If you want a fast paced, down to earth book, this is for you. I love the characters, the style of writing, and the "in your face" dialog and banter Mr Bond puts together. As a former Marine, I know that I had many conversations in the style of Ferg and Rankin. Get the book, read te series...it's worth it and enjoy

3 people found this helpful

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Larry Bond's First Team Audible Audiobook – Abridged

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