Have you ever been sitting at home or at work, when suddenly you get a knock on the door that you didn’t expect? You go to answer and are shocked to find someone you really love, but didn’t expect to see for a while, standing in front of you. You know that feeling, right?
Yeah, that happened to me today. And it’s about to happen to you!
Brad Thor is the biggest name in the thriller genre right now, and my favorite living author. Everything he writes is must-read material, and he never disappoints. Ever!
Well aware of Thor’s upcoming novel, Foreign Agent, scheduled to be released on June 14, 2016, I hadn’t expected to see my buddy Scot Harvath for another six months.
So there I was sitting at my desk today, working away on stuff when there was a (figurative) knock on my door. Who was standing when I opened it? Scot freaking Harvath!
That’s right, Brad Thor just dropped his first ever short story. The Athens Solution is available wherever eBooks are sold. I personally bought it on iBooks, and just finished reading it. Continue on for my spoiler-free remarks.
First of all, nobody can pack as much action into fifty pages as Brad Thor. The Athens Solution is a pulse-pounding short story stuffed with suspense, twists, and enough action to hold you over until Thor’s next novel comes out in June.
When the American Ambassador to Greece is forced to run a quickly planned operation with a few members of his security team, attempting to buy back a device capable of dishing out devastation unlike anything previously dreamed up before it, the stakes are at an all-time high. But things, unfortunately don’t go according to plan.
Fast forward to a month later, Scot Harvath has been called in to take back and secure the device that had been stolen from the United States government. But Harvath discovers, rather rapidly, that nothing – and I mean nothing – is quite what it seems.
The cherry on top of what is undoubtedly the best short story I’ve ever read, was the brief mention of a conversation Brad Thor had with Vince Flynn. That, for me especially (and other fans of Flynn and his character, Mitch Rapp), was especially unexpected and awesome.
Flynn, the bestselling author the beloved Mitch Rapp series, passed away in 2013. As many of you know I run a Mitch Rapp fan-site. Flynn and Rapp are special to me, as they are the reason I began reading this genre in the first place. To see his name pop up was a real treat, leaving me a tad emotional.
Since Vince’s passing, author Kyle Mills has take over the Rapp franchise and already delivered his first installment to the series, The Survivor, which was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller.
Getting back to Brad Thor, I’m thoroughly impressed with this awesome short story. In what’s maybe the best news of all, for us fans, Thor ends things by saying he has “a lot of short story ideas, so expect many more from me.”
I guess that means we can look forward to more surprise knocks on the door in the future. Thanks, Brad!