Goodbye Paris (Pono Hawkins #3) by Mike Bond

Goodbye Paris

(Pono Hawkins #3)

by Mike Bond 

Paperback, 376 pages

Published June 2019 by Big City Press

Goodreads synopsis:

Special Forces veteran Pono Hawkins races from a Tahiti surfing competition to France when he learns that a terrorist he'd thought was dead, Mustafa al-Boudienne, may have a backpack nuclear weapon and plans to destroy Paris. Pono was once Mustafa's prisoner, and is now the only one left alive to identify him.

Joining forces with former allies from US, French and Russian intelligence, and with an intrepid and brilliant French agent, Anne Ronsard, with whom he soon falls in love, Pono sets out against impossible odds to catch and kill Mustafa and his terrorist cell before they can destroy the most beautiful city on Earth.

Another in the bestselling Pono Hawkins series after Saving Paradise and Killing Maine, GOODBYE PARIS is a hallmark Mike Bond thriller: alive, tense, exciting, and full of fascinating details and places. And that will keep you up all night.

***

3 Stars

This is the third book in the Pono Haawkins series. I didn’t have a hard time initially getting into this book. I was surprised by the reference to the destruction of Notre Dame since that was a fairly recent occurrence.

This is pretty straight forward action adventure thriller but I wasn’t captured by the main character or cared to root for him. That made it a slog to get through this title. All the references to Islamic terrorists made my eyes roll up into my head. I do enjoy action adventure but don’t really resonate with how the bad guys were portrayed here. I am sure this is absolutely believable but it was over my head and that fact alone made me not want to keep reading on. I persevered in order to put out this review but I wanted to DNF this at 16% .

This has a strong first person narrative and everything really is there to make a first rate action adventure book but it just wasn’t in my wheelhouse. I can’t really explain why. Maybe if I saw this on the big screen it would make more sense to my brain. The story had good flow but the strange chapter breaks seemed to throw me off for some reason.

If you love action adventure, definitely pick this book up. It will give you all the feels. It does that well. I just couldn’t connect with the main character and that fact alone made it fall flat for me.

I received this as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) in return for an honest review. I thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this title.