The Last Second: A Brit in the FBI Series (Book 6 of 6)
Authors: Catherine Coulter and J.T. Ellison
Page Count: Hardcover 464 Pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 03.26.2019
ISBN-10: 1501138227
ISBN-13: 978-1501138225
Genre: Fiction > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Spies & Politics > Espionage > Crime
Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, IndieBound, Simon & Schuster
My Rating: 4 STARS
Author Catherine Coulter’s Bio (Provided by Publisher): (Photograph by Charles Bush)
Catherine Coulter is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eighty-five novels, including the FBI Thriller series and The Brit in the FBI international thriller series, co-written with J.T. Ellison. Coulter lives in Sausalito, California, with her Übermensch husband and their two noble cats, Peyton and Eli.
Follow Catherine Coulter on her Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and contact her at ReadMoi@gmail.com and follow her
Author J.T. Ellison’s Bio (From Publisher’s Page): (Krista Lee Photography)
New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison writes dark psychological thrillers and pens the Brit in the FBI series with #1 New York Times
bestselling author Catherine Coulter. With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim, prestigious awards, and has been published in 27 countries. She is also the EMMY-award winning co-host of the premier literary television show A Word on Words. Ellison lives in Nashville with her husband and twin kittens.
Follow J.T. Ellison on her Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads
The Last Second Book Description (From Publisher’s Page):
From New York Times, bestselling authors Catherine Coulter and J.T. Ellison comes a riveting thriller pitting special agents Nicholas Drummond and Michaela Caine against a private French space agency that has the power to end the world as we know it.
Galactus, France’s answer to SpaceX, has just launched a communications satellite into orbit, but the payload actually harbors a frightening weapon: a nuclear-triggered electromagnetic pulse.
When the satellite is in position, Galactus’s second-in-command, Dr. Nevaeh Patel, will have the power to lay waste to the world with an EMP. A former astronaut, Patel believes she is following the directions of the Numen, aliens who saved her life when she space-walked outside the International Space Station. She is convinced that with the Holy Grail, just discovered by the owner of Galactus—eccentric treasure hunter Jean-Pierre Broussard—she can be reunited with the Numen, change the world’s destiny, and become immortal with them.
The countdown has begun when Special Agents Nicholas Drummond and Michaela Caine are thrown into the pending disaster. They must stop the EMP that would wreak havoc on communication and electronic systems on Earth, resulting in chaos and anarchy.
With their signature “nonstop action with enough realism to keep you thinking and scare the daylights out of you at the same time” (Suspense Magazine), Coulter and Ellison have created a thriller to take you on a breakneck and breathtaking journey.
My Review:
Before diving into my review of The Last Second, I want to share some facts about the co-authors of the series A Brit in the FBI. Catherine Coulter has written over 85 novels, including 78 New York Times bestsellers. She initially began writing historical romances, and later added suspense thrillers. J.T. Ellison has written over 20 books and is an award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with thrillers published in 27 countries and 15 languages. No one can deny the fact that Coulter and Ellison have made their marks in the literary world and have proven themselves to be preeminent word crafters and storytellers.
Having made it clear on their genius writing talents and accomplishments, and in all fairness to Coulter and Ellison having not read the first five books in their series A Brit in the FBI, I was at a disadvantage by starting with book 6 of 6, The Last Second.
Coulter and Ellison’s natural, picturesque, and stylistic manner of writing The Last Second was strikingly written. The technological and factual aspects interspersed throughout The Last Second e.g, Guiana Space Center (CGS), nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) extravehicular activity (EVA) meaning spacewalk, the jet pack used in space and commonly known as a simplified aid for EVA, which is a smaller version of the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) aspects of uses, et cetera are believable. However, the whirlwind of aliens, the Holy Grail, the continuous action of and interaction with landslides, typhoons, et cetera, as well as the other innumerable events that took place around the globe in four days, left me with believing the length of the The Last Second was incredulous. There were too many things happening, too much traversing the world to reach a resolution in four days realistically; this would never be possible, fiction or not.
I also discerned some disjointedness when joining two parallel plots of the story. Plot one begins with space, a psychotic (perhaps) scientific astronaut, and aliens, and parallels another plot of Broussard at sea in an impetuous quest to find the Holy Grail. I felt a disconnect from the characters, but this is on me as I had not read the five previous books in the series which put me at a disadvantage of the backstories of the characters. Particularly characters from the earlier books in the series who appeared in The Last Second, which made it difficult to connect the characters. But again, this is due to my not reading the first five books of the series.
What stood out to me as exceptionally well done was the writing, the suspense and unknown coupled with the unexpected twists that I never saw coming, and the humorous back and forth wordplay between Nick and Mike.
I recommend this book because the authors are sensational. However, I believe I would have benefited from reading the first five books of the series before starting with The Last Second. In recommending this book, I suggest the readers begin with book 1 of 6 and work your way to The Last Second. I wish I had started with book 1 of the series; by not doing so I felt as if I was reading an Indiana Jones meets Star Wars story.
Thank you, Simon & Schuster, Catherine Culture, J.T. Ellison, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review The Last Second.
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