Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Trap the Devil: A Thriller (A Dewey Andreas Novel Book 7)

Great addition to the Dewey Andreas series...

Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2017

Trap the Devil is the latest installment of author Ben Coes' Dewey Andreas series. For anyone who is a fan of previous books in this series, you will not be disappointed.
Andreas, former Delta and now CIA operative, is given what at first appears to be a simple assignment - accompany the US Secretary of State to Paris as an added layer of protection. When the Secretary is assassinated with Andreas' weapon, he is on the run while trying to unravel a plan decades in the making to take down the US government. If a mysterious woman who has recently escaped from an asylum in France is to be believed, the threat is coming from inside the highest levels of the US intelligence community in an operation known as "Order 6."
Coes is truly one of the most gifted writers of espionage thrillers today - as author Brad Thor sums up on the book jacket, "Envision Clancy, Forsyth and le Carre all writing in their prime."
Coes delivers intrigue and suspense on every page, building to an explosive ending that leaves just enough unanswered questions to set the stage for the next Dewey Andreas adventure but not so many that the reader feels unsatisfied.
For those familiar with the series, you'll recognize characters from previous novels - Katie Foxx, Rob Tacoma, CIA director Hector Calibrisi, President Dellenbaugh, Nebuchar Fortuna.
For those who are new to Coes/Andreas (as I was until a year ago), each novel, while continuing a core cast of characters, can be read on its own so feel free to jump in anytime. When necessary, Coes deftly adds in a brief backstory without weighing down the action for those already familiar with a character or past plot reference.
Trap the Devil is a race-against-the-clock page turner that already has me anxiously awaiting Coes' next Dewey Andreas installment.

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Jennifer

Wow!! What A Thrilling Ride This Was!!

Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2017

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I am just emotionally spent after this one I have got to say!! WOW!!
From the moment I started this I couldn't stop I just wanted to race to the ending. I was on the edge of my seat from the word go.

A huge conspiracy to take over the government is in motion and Dewey is being framed for the murder of the Secretary of State. But Dewey is smarter than the average bear..lol In this story you are going to feel like Dewey is taking you along for the ride with him. It feels like we get more insight into his mind. And I believe the reason for this is Coes writing.

I'm glad Ben Coes is not cranking out more than one book a year because if he were it would hinder the great writing style he has developed for our much loved characters in Dewey's stories. Coes has done a great job with the growth of these characters and they are smooth as silk.

If you haven't read any of these books your missing out on a great experience. I recommend this to one and all. Happy Reading!! And Ben Coes Thanks for sharing your talent, heart, and soul with us.~Your Faithful Reader

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spatt

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2017

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I was pretty disappointed by this book. I only finished it because I like the characters and when I read the next one in the series I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything important. I felt like he 'jumped the shark' with this book. There was just too much of everything and too much was just too unbelievable for me to get past. I will give the next one is the series a chance and hope that Ben Coes gets back to what made Dewey's stories so enjoyable to read.

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Another Summer Delight

Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2017

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Dewey Andreas is an ex-Delta, CIA operative who dates the daughter of the Director of the CIA and spends the bulk of his professional time saving the world (though not necessarily in that order). In TRAP THE DEVIL Dewey faces his greatest challenge yet. A group of rogue Washington agents have formed what amounts to a shadow government. Their plans are simple: to assassinate the Speaker of the House, the Secretary of State, the Vice President and President. They will then insert their ringer Speaker into the presidency and launch nuclear strikes against the Middle East and Europe. Their goal is to prevent any further Islamic terrorism by effacing all Muslims from the face of the earth.

Dewey has been dispatched to Paris as backup protection for the Secretary of State, but when he is murdered (using Dewey’s pistol) the hunt is on. Dewey is captured by the French security apparat, but when he escapes they issue an INTERPOL alert which signals to each and every one of Dewey’s past opponents (a very long list) that he is on the lam and vulnerable to capture and assassination. At any one point, Dewey is being chased by the French, some Middle East terrorists, the Iranians and an agent of the rogue conspirators. In return, Dewey himself is looking for a woman who was seen in the Secretary of State’s suite at the time of his murder. Was she the murderer or a person who conveyed information to him which resulted in his death?

Much of the action takes place in France, with a wonderful car chase through Paris and a classic series of scenes on the night train from Marseille to Frankfurt, a sequence that would have put Cubby Broccoli into paroxysms of joy and made the Orient Express scenes in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE look like an underfunded first draft for state of the art action/adventure on the rails.

Only one regret: while Katie and Rob are along for the ride, with Hector Calibrisi, et al. in support, there is no appearance by the stunning Mossad operative, Kohl Meir. Perhaps next time.

Ben Coes does not write reflective, philosophic fiction; he writes slam/bang commercial fiction with an insider’s knowledge of government agencies and an aficionado’s knowledge of weaponry, both that made of steel and that made of 1’s and 0’s. His books convey the feeling that our government is far more effective and its defense systems far more advanced than we would ever dream. He takes us from country to country and, as far as I can tell, his facts are solid. The best test is to check him on some sequence of details with which the reader is personally familiar. In this story, e.g., there is a scene at a restaurant in Great Falls, VA and a car chase that ensues on the country road that connects the restaurant to the rest of the northern Virginia grid. I have eaten at that restaurant on multiple occasions (as has most of Washington) and driven that road many times, always in the dark. It looks and feels just as Ben Coes describes it.

TRAP THE DEVIL is part of the summer’s bounty thus far, along with such other delights as Brett Battle’s THE AGGRIEVED and Don Winslow’s stunning THE FORCE. Personally, I am a sucker for the Washington suburbs, with evil people sitting on old leather couches, warming themselves before fiery hearths, sipping expensive whiskey and planning to destroy America, particularly when you just know that their cashmere cardigans are going to be covered in blood in just a few hours of reading time.

Enjoy.

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Plot is not as good as some in the series

Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2018

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One of the things I have enjoyed in the Dewey Andreas series of books by Ben Coes are the plots, however, this one seems to fall short in my opinion. It's been done many times before - the takeover of the US government by killing off the top leaders and placing the evil doers in their places.

The book does have plenty of action, as do all the books in the series, and Dewey is, as usual, indestructible.

I read the eighth book (and the latest) in this series, Bloody Sunday, first and enjoyed it. So, I went back and bought the others and have read them in order. This book is the seventh in the series, and takes the reader to the place that Bloody Sunday starts. I would suggest reading these books in order of publication.

The author continues not to understand that Arab men do not wear Hijabs and still does not know when to use the word "take" instead of "bring". Just annoying. At least he did not have the many errors surrounding weapons, which seemed to plague the earlier works.

If you are reading the series, then buy it and read it, but beware that it may not grip you as do some in the series.

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Road Captain

No More Dewey For Me

Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2017

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Unfortunately this book stretched the bounds of even the most preposterous action novels. I was waiting for one of Dewey's disguises to be a cowl and a cape. This coupled with the obvious editorial errors like the bad guy who filled a pack with 8 gauge shotgun shells and then the statement that his favorite weapon was a 12 gauge shotgun. Also Dewey's target shooting session when he put 7 shots in the same hole of a target set at 200 yards firing a Colt M1911A1 .45 caliber semi auto pistol. This accuracy at this distance is virtually impossible for any handgun. More so for the .45 which is a big, heavy and relatively slow bullet. At 200 yards given its ballistics this would be like lobbing in an artillery round. A totally ridiculous feat of marksmanship even for someone of Dewey's supposed expertise. A totally unnecessary exaggeration. These are just a few examples of either bad research or bad editing that ruins what could have been a pretty good tale . I've read all of this series and have seen the transition of Dewey Andreas from hero to superhero. It has reached the end for me as I won't read another.

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Coes delves deeper into Andreas' surly loner personality

Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2017

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I enjoy the Dewey Andreas novels immensely. They have a ton of action and Coes doesn’t sugar-coat it: they’re very violent with a high exploding-head quotient. The tradecraft and inside poop are always good.

Andreas’ surly loner persona creates both a tension and a realism, since you can’t see a normal person doing what he does. Writers wanting to establish their action heroes as nice guys sometimes defy realism, but Andreas’ combination of laconic guy humor at one end, and the desire not to kill if he doesn’t really have to at the other, are enough to do that here. That plus knowing the president, the CIA director, the latter’s cute daughter and others in an inner circle all love him.

This story fascinates a couple of accounts. We dig deeper into his surly loner head. CIA boss Hector Calibrisi orders him to visit the agency psychiatrist, to explore his obvious death wish. Andreas constantly strikes off on his own, without orders, against the world’s worst bad guys. This story yields a stunning twist into the event which set him down this path, the death of his wife, for which he was charged and acquitted, but which poisoned his relationship with the Army.

As the FBI, cooperating with the Canadians, plots to take down a jihadi-recruiting Toronto mosque, carnage breaks out there. NSA data crunching leads to a shock: cell phone calls tied to it were moving through an off-the-books spy satellite with a never-used frequency. There’s a plot and it involves some very inside people.

Meanwhile a Swiss woman learns her husband is plotting to kill the U.S. president. Before she can flee she’s locked up in a psychiatric hospital.

Dewey, who while being shrunk is given what’s supposed to be an unchallenging assignment protecting the Secretary of State overseas, is nearby when the man is assassinated. French intelligence throws Andreas in jail and begins a brutal interrogation.

White right-wing bad guys - the villains du jour for virtually every TV, movie or novel lately - are plotting to rid the world of Muslims. It’ll take the presidency to do what they want: massive nuclear strikes throughout the world of Islam.

So launches a massive nuclear strike of an action thriller. I particularly liked the over-the-top train sequence, in which Dewey and the woman’s assassin husband are both chasing her and both Arab terrorists and Iranian spies are chasing Dewey. He’s aided meanwhile by his frequent confederates Katie and Rob.

Like all good train scenes, the climactic action actually happens over the top, up on the roof during a howling blizzard. Coes is just exuberant in his action scene plotting. The intensity of this book just keeps on building.

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Huntsabunch

Great read except for the magic.

Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2017

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I have to say that Ben Coes is a great writer. Great plot, great characters, good pace. I have read all of the Dewey Andreas series and look forward to the next one. I see only one area that would improve the novel, for me at least. Coes, like many writers, seems to get in a hurry near the end of the story. One of the things I truly enjoy about this type of real life thriller is seeing how our hero gets out of some of the impossible situations he/she finds him/herself in. The escape has to be as believable as the rest of the story. They can be extremely capable in their abilities but not superhuman or supernatural. As the story gets closer to the end the events become less believable and believability is one thing I look for. Like I said, it's not something unique to Ben Coes. I've seen it with many fine writers. "Trap the Devil" is a great read and I highly recommend it.

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Robert James Vandevoort (Ahwatukee, Arizona)

Another Ben Coes Hit (but perhaps not in France)

Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2017

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When this reader read his first Ben Coes novel in 2016, he was simply stunned. His thrillers are all too realistic, timely and believable. Immediately the five earlier titles he wrote were ordered, but not read at once, since once you begin, it is very difficult to put down. His recently released “Trap the Devil” at first appeared to be not so believable, but once finished, one realizes what if?

It is 1981 and during a meeting with William Casey, the Director of Central Intelligence and Secretary of State Alexander Haig it is decided for Casey to issue a secret order that would create a select group of warriors that would provide security for the president at a much higher level than that provided by the Secret Service.

Over the next 35+ years, this secretive group develops into a shadow government, with the eventual goal of creating a coup in the United States. And should they be able to do this, what would be their objective? Simply their hatred of militant Islam would force them to destroy the Middle East. This shadow government has existed quite well as a hidden force, and it is not until the Secretary of State is murdered in Paris, do questions start being asked.

The hero of Ben Coes novels is Dewey Andreas, a former Delta operator and now the CIAs secret weapon. He is a smart and effective killing machine, although the chapters covering a train ride in France were perhaps pushing his limits. If you are into thrillers, and have not read a Ben Coes novel, you don’t know what you are missing!

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Breef

Better, but...

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2017

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Better then the previous book, First Strike, but not as solid as some of the earlier Dewey Andreas. There still are unrealistic actions that pop off the page, suspending belief and interrupting the story. A tough hero can be a fascinating character, but when he's portrayed as Superman without the cape, interest in the entire project takes a hit. Here's hoping next time Mr. Coes can give us a human hero and not a comic book character.

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5 star		78%
4 star		14%
3 star		4%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

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