Agent Zero

A Kent Steele Thriller

By: Jack Mars

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

In this much-anticipated new spy thriller series by Jack Mars, listeners are taken on an action thriller across Europe as presumed-CIA operative Kent Steele, hunted by terrorists, by the CIA, and by his own identity, must solve the mystery of who is after him, of the terrorists’ pending target - and of the beautiful woman he keeps seeing in his mind.

Kent Steele, 38, a brilliant professor of European History at Columbia University, lives a quiet life in a New York suburb with his two teenage daughters. All that changes when late one night he gets a knock on his door and is abducted by three terrorists - and finds himself flown across the ocean to be interrogated in a basement in Paris.

They are convinced that Kent is the most lethal spy the CIA has ever known.

He is convinced they have the wrong man.

Do they?

With a conspiracy around him, adversaries as smart as he is, and an assassin on his tail, the wild game of cat and mouse leads Kent on a perilous road - one that may lead back to Langley - and to a shocking discovery of his own identity.

Agent Zero is an espionage thriller that will keep you listening late into the night.

©2019 Jack Mars (P)2019 Audible Originals, LLC.

The Boring Identity

Tell me if you've heard this one before? Our hero discovers that the person he believes himself to be is not actually the person he is. Mayhem ensues. In the hands of a master like Robert Ludlum, you get a work of art like The Bourne Identity. In less capable hands you get inane drivel like Agent Zero. Where Ludlum gave us opera, Jack Mars gives us . . . singing in the shower. And really . . . who wants to listen to 11 hours of somebody singing in the shower? The only saving grace here is Edoardo Ballerini. I could listen to Ballerini read the Cheesecake Factory menu. He almost saves this one . . . but even his prodigious narrative talents can't entice me into throwing away another credit on book 2 of this series.

Meh. Poor imitation of Jason Bourne

Story was okay, writing very mediocre. Won't be listening to more books in the series.

Good story. Great Narration

The story is very similar to many of the spy thrillers out there. It's fun, fast paced, and written pretty well. The stories downsides would be the all around familiarities (events, dialogue, problems) that you get in a lot of spy thrillers. For me, what made it really enjoyable was the narration. The reader does a great job of keeping a consistent, upbeat tone that makes it all feel fast and action packed. I'm going to try the next one in the series and see how it goes.

Find a different Narrator

Sorry but the Narrator Edward really didn't do justice to this book. But book 4 is a lot better since they switch the Narrator to Brian. It would be great if you could get him or Ray Porter to do books 1-3 in this series.

This first Agent Zero book was good

I have listened to one other Agent Zero book later in the series and was not impressed with the character development or the story overall. I thought I'd try the first book to see if it was better, and it was much better. I'm not sure where the series starts to go downhill, but I'm glad I listened to this first book.