The Wolves, John Wells #10, Alex Berenson, narrated by George Guidall
When the novel begins, the reader learns that a planned invasion of Iran by the United States had been thwarted, just in time. The effort to start this war was engineered by an American, Aaron Duberman, who was married to an Israeli supermodel. He was a billionaire who owned many casinos. In order to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, which he considered dangerous to the safety and security of Israel, he devised a plan to trick the United States President into invading Iran. He succeeded in convincing the President that Iran intended to smuggle a nuclear weapon into the country, but Duberman’s deception was discovered and stopped in the 11th hour, by John Wells, a former undercover CIA agent, Senator Vinny Duto and Ellis Shafer, a CIA agent.

The very wealthy Duberman was a large contributor to the current President’s war chest, and he was therefore easily able to convince him that treachery was afoot in Iran. When his disloyalty was discovered, the President did not want his own part in the failed, illegal plan to get out; it would be political suicide for him. Hence, he attempted to protect Duberman and put out a false statement to the public about the invasion which had been canceled. As the plot played out, the reader is exposed to the hypocrisy and power of the government as it went to great lengths in its attempts to keep the truth from the public eye and to prevent anyone else from exposing it.

As Wells attempted to catch up with Aaron Duberman to administer his own form of justice, the reader is taken all over land and sea following him in his search for revenge. Duberman’s body guards are former Mossad agents, but they seem to be no match for Wells who carefully planned his actions. People were threatened, coerced and murdered. However, someone eventually betrayed Wells. Who would do that? Was it friend or enemy? Before long the British, Chinese, Russians, Israelis and Americans all have a hand in this thriller which at times lost all credibility. I found that the details of excessive violence and the unnecessarily descriptive sexual encounters diminished the power of the story itself. Still, I always wondered if Wells would get his man and so I read on. The narrator did a fine job of presenting each character and event with clarity.