Pretty good read. Concise. The premise was a bit much to bite since this guy is an American hero, but willing to take a 'job' that seems out of line just to save jobs (and his son). ( )

Wow. This book was bad (and I don't mean baaaaad, but bad)! I'd warn you of of spoilers, but read Amazon's description and you can figure out what happens. And that's only part of the problem. There are many more:

Author Patrick Robinson obviously has great respect for Navy SEALS and has done a lot of research about them. But protagonist Mack Bedford's abilities are so overblown and cartoonish, it's hard to take him seriously. He's pretty much described as Superman without the cape. He's bigger, badder, stronger, faster, more ruthless than...well, anyone. Absurd. And just because Bedford was a commander in the special forces, doesn't mean he can devise what ends up being a totally foolproof plan to take out a heavily protected person, complete with multiple disguises, superhuman feats, and horrendously unbelievable coincidences.

For what is such an obvious plot line and result, it takes a helluva long time to get there. This is in part because of all the wasteful description of food preparation and news stories Robinson litters the story with. As to the latter, the reader is treated to two rather long reporter investigations into the crime. Problem is, we already know everything the reporter's uncovering, so there's absolutely no reason for it to be there. Robinson's portrayal of how the story is covered around the world is ridiculous too. Sure, the US media would cover it, but it wouldn't be wall-to-wall as he describes it.

The audio version suffers from typical melodramatic male narration (which seems to be typical of audio books). Here, Charles Leggett delivers mundane sentences like he's amped up with adrenalin. To his credit, however, he does a slew of accents quite well.

Diamondhead is awful. Don't read--or listen--to it. ( )