Weaponized

by Nicholas Mennuti Narrated by Johnny Heller

Overview

A globe-spanning, wrong-man thriller cowritten by the screenwriter of the #1 film Safe House

Kyle West is a wanted man. Having fled the country to escape false charges filed against him and his former boss, billionaire government contractor Christopher Chandler, Kyle is hiding in Cambodia, living on borrowed time and finding more and more reasons to be paranoid.

When a mysterious stranger named Julian Robinson walks into Kyle's favorite café and offers to swap passports with him, Kyle can't believe his luck. Robinson looks so much like Kyle it's almost unreal, and he seems in every way the yin to Kyle's yang-self-assured, charismatic, and wealthy beyond measure. Traveling on business, Robinson needs Kyle's passport to get to Africa, where a lucrative deal awaits. Kyle needs Robinson's passport to safely flee Cambodia. The swap seems almost too good to be true. Unfortunately, it is.

This one decision plunges Kyle into a Pandora's box of intrigue that threatens to swallow him whole. Suddenly he finds himself pursued by Russian oligarchs, Chinese operatives, the CIA, and a beautiful woman trained to kill. Robinson certainly isn't who he seemed, and time is running out for Kyle to discover who he is.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Memorable prose distinguishes Mennuti and Guggenheim’s excellent first novel. American Kyle West, a software genius whose algorithms linking the 9/11 terrorists impressed the U.S. intelligence community, has sought refuge in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (a city that, at night, resembles “the love child of Blade Runner and Rudyard Kipling”), after he and his boss, Christopher Chandler, become the objects of a Senate investigation. A stranger, Julian Robinson, offers a way out of life on the run by proposing that he and West swap identities, but of course things soon go awry. The authors have their fingers on the pulse of contemporary life, trenchantly observing, for example, that revolutions are outdated, because “when the revolution finally figures out what it wants, it’s already too late—the opposition has factored it into its own plan.” That sophistication extends to the plot and characters as well, making this the rare suspense novel that will genuinely surprise jaded genre readers. (July)

From the Publisher

"[A] freewheeling thriller [with] Graham Greene-ish erudition and atmosphere."—New York Times Book Review

"[An] excellent first novel . . . The authors have their fingers on the pulse of contemporary life . . . The rare suspense novel that will genuinely surprise jaded genre readers."—Publishers Weekly (starred)

"Applying postmodern polish to the foreign intrigue of Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, WEAPONIZED leaves an imprint with its lively cast of characters, pungent locale and dizzy plotting."—Kirkus Review

USA Today

Acclaim for SAFE HOUSE, written by David Guggenheim:

"A hectic plot, a huge body-count and pulse-quickening tension."

New York Times Book Review

"[A] freewheeling thriller [with] Graham Greene-ish erudition and atmosphere."

New Orleans Times-Picayune

"A gritty spy thriller and taut, suspense-filled ride."

Philadelpha Inquirer

"SAFE HOUSE rockets along."

Philadelphia Inquirer

SAFE HOUSE rockets along.

Kirkus Reviews

In this caustic, action-filled thriller, an American computer-coding whiz hiding out in sweltering Phnom Penh makes the mistake of trading identities with a high-powered businessman who looks exactly like him. Congress wants Kyle West for contempt for skipping out on charges relating to his work for a billionaire government contractor under indictment. Reputed to be the man who first made cellphones ignite improvised explosive devices, West is talked into temporarily trading passports with the shady Julian Robinson, who claims to work for a German telecom company. Robinson convinces his doppelganger that he needs the false ID to conduct business in Africa anonymously. West, who suffers from bad anxiety, discovers that life can get worse when, mistaken for Robinson, he is abducted by Chinese thugs and assigned a job by Russian supergangster Andrei Protosevitch. And then there's Lara, Robinson's gun-happy, Russian-born girlfriend, who first seduces West and then tries to kill him. The CIA man on the case is Fowler, a Vietnam veteran who, like most of the characters, has one foot in the '60s (West's parents were leftist radicals; the Russians are post-communists) even as the constant presence of CNN anchors everyone in the all-knowing present. Applying postmodern polish to the foreign intrigue of Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, first-time novelist Mennuti and Hollywood screenwriter Guggenheim (Safe House, 2012) don't scrimp on the chase scenes and bloody encounters, one of which leaves West with a knife protruding from his stomach. Beware, too, the army of glue-sniffing monkeys being pursued by the Cambodian cops. Though a novel without much of a moral compass, it leaves an imprint with its lively cast of characters, pungent locale and dizzy plotting.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169907704
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	02/01/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

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