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“A border ain’t nothing but a law drawn in the sand.� So says a small-town Texas sheriff in Ted Bell’s most gripping espionage thriller to date. Things along America’s southern border are rapidly reaching the boiling point. American girls are being snatched from their homes, ranches are burning, and the number of deadly confrontations along the Mexican boarder grows daily. At night, armed Mexican troops cross the border at will in support of narcotics smugglers and illegal immigrants. By day, Americans take up arms and plan reprisals. An all-out border war is no longer inconceivable. It’s happening!

On assignment for the British Secret Service, a man leads a mysterious expedition into the heart of darkness. Sailing up the furthest reaches of the Amazon River, he is captured by a brutal tribe of indigenous cannibals. Forced into slave labor, he witnesses the unimaginable. Golden domes and minarets rise beneath the rainforest canopy. Vast terror armies are being recruited and trained in the jungle. Their goal: a vicious jihad that will unite one continent…and destroy another. They possess weapons only dreamed of by the Western allies. Somehow he must escape his captors and live to tell his tale.

With tensions on its southern border threatening to ignite into war, America must look to the one man who might be able to confront the demons in the jungle…and destroy them. Alex Hawke, with the aid of brilliant Scotland Yard Inspector Ambrose Congreve, and an unstoppable force of nature named Stokely Jones, begins a river journey fraught with peril. He must confront all the terrors that man and nature can hurl at him. From black magic, poison-tipped arrows, and blowguns to an awesome arsenal of the most advanced military hardware, Hawke must overcome insurmountable odds on his quest for victory.

Here is an author who gets you in the palm of his hand and then clenches his fist. And here is a saga loaded to the gunwales with action, glamour, and spellbinding suspense. Alex Hawke once again takes listeners right to that thin border between fear and overwhelming terror. It’s merely a line drawn in the sand. Cross it at your peril.

Cross it if you dare.

496 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2006

239 people are currently reading
1,496 people want to read

About the author

Ted Bell

42books850followers
Ted Bell was the author of 12 consecutive New York Times best sellers and a former advertising executive. He began his advertising career in the 1970’s as a junior copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB), New York. At the age of 25, he sold his first screenplay to Hollywood, as well as became the youngest vice-president in the storied history of DDB. He then joined Leo Burnett Co., Chicago, as a creative director and four years later, he was named President, Chicago Creative Officer where he was credited with developing numerous innovative and award-winning advertising campaigns. In 1982, Bell joined Young & Rubicam, London, and in 1991 he became the Vice Chairman and Worldwide Creative Director. Ted won every award the advertising industry offers, including numerous Clios and Cannes Gold Lions, and while at Young & Rubicam, the Grand Prix at the Cannes Festival. In 2001, Ted retired to write full time. He has 10 New York Times Bestsellers to his credit: The Alex Hawke series of spy thrillers published by HarperCollins and the young adult targeted time travel adventure series, Nick of Time and The Time Pirate published by St. Martins Press.

A native Floridian, Bell graduated from Randolph-Macon College in Virginia and was a former member of the college’s Board of Trustees. He held an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Kendall College in Michigan. Bell was also an Adjunct Professor of English Literature at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida. He was a member of the Defense Orientation Conference Association (DOCA), a program run by the Department of Defense in support of America’s military. He served on the Advisory Board at George Washington’s Home at Mount Vernon, a group chaired by former Secretary of the Army, Togo West. He also served for a time as an advisor to the Undersecretary for Domestic Relations at the U.S. Department of State.

For the 2011-2012 Academic Year, Sir Richard Dearlove, Former Chief of MI6, British Intelligence, sponsored Ted to become a Visiting Scholar at Cambridge University (UK). In addition, he was named Writer-in-Residence at Sydney-Sussex College, Cambridge and studied at the University’s Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLIS) under the tutelage of Sir Dearlove, who was the Master of Pembroke College.

In May 2018, Ted published OVERKILL, the 10th book in the popular Alex Hawke spy thriller series.

In January 2019, Ted and Jon Adler of Jon Adler Films formed El Dorado Entertainment, a feature film and television production company based in New York.

In July 2019, Ted signed a two-book deal with Random House.

In July 2020, the 11th Alex Hawke thriller, DRAGONFIRE, was published.

On December 7, 2021, the 12th Alex Hawke thriller, SEA HAWKE was published.

Ted appeared on numerous television and radio programs and was a featured speaker at associations, clubs, libraries and organizations across the country.

Ted traveled the world and lived in Italy, London, France, Palm Beach, New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Maine. He last lived in a beloved 19th century farmhouse in Connecticut.

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5 stars
1,733 (37%)
4 stars
1,844 (39%)
3 stars
821 (17%)
2 stars
212 (4%)
1 star
65 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 200 reviews
Profile Image for TXGAL1.
356 reviews42 followers
September 30, 2021
SPY(Alex Hawke #4), by Ted Bell is the first book by this author that I have read. It certainly made no difference that I had not read the previous three in the series. It stood well upon its own merits.

SPY is a great thriller moving at a heart-racing pace between Royal Commander Alexander Hawke and alternately Sheriff Franklin Dixon of Prairie, Texas trying to bring down an evil force bent on the destruction of America.

Some might say that this book is steered towards the male reader. I’d like to think that everyone enjoys a good read, no matter the subject. I learned a lot and would enjoy reading the first book in this series.

This was a quick, free ebook that I read on Glose.
Profile Image for Tim.
2,406 reviews302 followers
March 19, 2017
This story is a good example of extremely poor editing. It is much too long and detrimental to the overall enjoyment of the novel. The ending is much better than the rest of the story, but it takes too long to get there. 3 of 10 stars

My original review was based on the abridged version. I listened to the unabridged version and although there are many various story lines, they don't necessarily all come together at the end because there are too many divergent ones. Still, the story should have been better edited and tighter. 6 of 10 stars
Profile Image for Paul.
989 reviews36 followers
Read
March 13, 2012
Actual rating: 0.5 stars.

A very dear friend - super-smart, a voracious reader who is a member of Amazon's book reviewing staff - told me I should read something by Ted Bell. Maybe I picked the wrong novel. Or maybe she had a different Ted Bell in mind. The Ted Bell I read is just another Clive Cussler, and his hero Alex Hawke is even less dimensional than Cussler's Dirk Pitt. Several cars speed away in this novel, fishtailing as they accelerate. And motorcycles, boats, even airplanes. All vehicles must fishtail! The plot relies on a familiar racist right-wing conceit: dirty brown Mexicans are invading our country, hoping to reconquer territory lost in the Mexican-American War. That notion is repeated, almost verbatim, by different characters at least 20 times. There's an abundance of military techno-babble as well, all of it firmly in the realm of fantasy. Clearly, Ted Bell is unfamiliar with the realities of warfare, where things don't ever work as advertised. Nasty stuff. Sloppily written nasty stuff.
Profile Image for Walter.
8 reviews
September 12, 2013
There’s a blurb on the front of Ted Bell’s Spy from James Patterson. “Ted Bell,� exclaims the blurb, “can really, really write.�

And Ted Bell can really, really write. What Ted Bell needs is an editor who can really, really edit.

The plot is simple enough: Bell’s protagonist, Alexander Hawke is a prisoner of a deranged Arab terrorist in a jungle hideout in the Amazon. The terrorist is planning a big attack against the United States. Hawke escapes, makes it back to the UK and warns the Powers That Be of the madman in the jungle. Hawke then goes back to the Amazon and saves the day. Simple and exciting.

泦�.

Spy clocks in at 699 pages. And that is probably about 300 pages too long. There are too many moving pieces that do not advance the story and seem to wander off on their own. It takes too dang long to get the story moving.

Elmore Leonard famously advised writers to omit the parts of a story that a reader doesn’t care about and will skip. Spy does not follow this sage advice. A good chunk of the novel has Hawk going from one meal to another as we deal with plot exposition. Hawke’s relationship with the US Secretary of State, Consuelo de los Reyes, has hit the rocks and there are chapters devoted the characters� pining for one another. None of it is remotely related to the story.

There is a character in the novel whose only apparent purpose is to have sex with Hawke.

And there are the subplots:

We have a subplot involving Mexican machinations on the US/Mexico border that gives us a Texas sheriff and his deputy investigating not only ghost trucks, but also a white slavery ring and negotiating with a Mexican narco-terrorist gang. Most of this subplot has zero to do with the overall story and should have been jettisoned.

There is Harry Brock, CIA, and a meandering subplot that has him picking up pieces of intel about the madman in the jungle that feels like filler.

There is the laughable subplot of the terrorist attack being written in code based on the novel, the Da Vinci Code that no one in the NSA, CIA or MI-6 can figure out. Only Hawke’s pal, Ambrose Cosgreve can solve it.

Stokely Jones has an entire chapter devoted to buying a car. His subplot involving finding a crashed and submerged jet carrying missiles really doesn’t go anywhere. It seems to be part of a different story where Venezuela is preparing to invade the US.

And that seems to be the main problem with Spy: it is two novels smashed into one book: A madman in the jungle preparing to attack the US and a South American plot to destroy America. Had Bell picked one of the two stories and ran with it, the result probably would have been a better tale.

Provided he had an editor to keep him on track.
Profile Image for Tim VanSant.
Author2 books2 followers
July 28, 2009
Can you say, "suspension of disbelief?" Could terrorists build a network of training camps in the rain forests of South America over several years and remain virtually undetected? OK. Super heroes need super villains.

What really bugged me though was getting little details wrong -- inconsistent chronology, characters playing gin rummy but the description of the hands don't make sense, and writing that the Washington bible is used for every inauguration. I once failed a history test (open book!) in high school (yes, I am ashamed) but even I know that's not right.
130 reviews1 follower
November 6, 2021
A James Bond type of character with more money. And if you like James Bond.....

I thought the story was good, though the ending was tied up in a few pages with the bad guy confessing his plans too quickly and all was good. All that, after I had read 700 pages! Ha!

Profile Image for Rajish Maharaj.
192 reviews12 followers
June 4, 2023
Compared to book 2 this was an improvement ( Yes I jumped books), yet it did tend to wander off in directions that was of little interest. Minor portions of bravado by Hawk were a bit much to swallow. The story began quite interestingly with Hawke running from his captors, but it slowly died down in pace from there, especially when jumping to different view points between main characters. The book in itself wasn't bad and worth for me a 2.5 star review, its not the worst nor the greatest in the series thus far.
3 reviews3 followers
March 25, 2016
"Spy" is the fourth story of Alexander Hawke written by Ted Bell. I really enjoyed this book because I just love to read thrillers and "heart-squishing" plot where as I read, I had to focus myself to picture each scenes. This book is about Alexander Hawke, a MI6 intelligence officer, who gets captured by cannibals and is forced to labor in the jungle of Amazon. He was hired in order to investigate why American girls were taken from their homes, security became way more strict than before, and ranches were burning in the borders of Mexico. The cause was in the jungles of Mexico so Hawke had no choice but to go there and find it out himself. During his captivity, he learns that the tribal people who capture him weren't normal; they were trained warriors who dedicated their lives to take down America. Also, he learns that South and Central America wants US to meet its end and begone. The story gets more intense as the chapters are read. Ted Bell uses great uses of language to describe each particular scenes with different tones. Also, he choice of diction fits well to the environment of the plot. I highly recommend this book to those who like thrilling and intensified stories.
Profile Image for Jeanne.
975 reviews4 followers
May 28, 2015
Talk about a case for an abridged version of a story! There were way too many things going on in this story, and a large portion of the story was around a plot that was totally unrelated to the main plot. I was surprised with how the story came together and liked how the story ended; however, this high point does not make up for the unnecessary plot line and too many moving parts. 4 out of 10 stars for me on this 4th installment of the Alexander Hawk series.
Profile Image for Marianne.
2,230 reviews
June 30, 2014
Hawke is up there with warrior heroes like Mitch Rapp, Kirk McGarvey and Jack Reacher.
Totally unrealistic but great fun. Well, maybe not totally unrealistic, but close.
Profile Image for Shaunda.
350 reviews
May 14, 2021
Interesting read, SPY 🕵️‍♂� By Ted Bell.

I makes on wonder, just how much animosity other countries have towards the United States 🇺🇸, and what if anything are they doing with tg saihat animosity.

Another thing that was quite bothering, was our borders in Texas. How secure are they really? If it's not secure, what step are being taken to secure it.


Things that make you go, Hmmmmmm!

I learned some historical things reading 📖 this book.

Like the hatred radical Islamic extremists have against the United States 🇺🇸. Their Jidhadist mindset is truly terrifying, and mind boggling.

Well enough of that, good read for sure. I'm wondering what the next, Alex Hawke novel had to offer.

With that being said, TSAR is up next.
Can't wait to see what is in store in this novel.

Until my next review, you already know. Happy Reading 📚!!!!!!!!!!


侱💋
Profile Image for Katie.
8 reviews2 followers
September 3, 2023
I must have read an unabridged version because about 700 pages later I've finally finished. I think overall the story was enthralling, but it could have been edited to cut out a lot of unnecessary details and parts that were thrown in for perspective - but really were just fluffy filler parts that didn't contribute to the story overall.

I've not read a novel like this before and enjoyed it overall. I would consider reading another from the series. It reads like a thrilling TV show and it was surprisingly easy to follow the story and relationships between characters despite not having read any other books in this series before.
Profile Image for Cynthia.
563 reviews
September 8, 2023
The story is told from the perspective of three intersecting events with three groups of characters. Terrorists are plotting to disrupt America and create dangerous situations across the country with a focus on assassinating the President. Meanwhile Hawke’s friend Ambrose Congreve is kidnapped and tortured for the information he knows about the master plan of destruction and violence. At the beginning I found it a little slow and disjointed. By midway I could see how it was all coming together and it starting racing in pace towards the finish.
60 reviews
March 15, 2025
a high octane thriller

Wow this story starts out with a bang, Alex is prisoner and tortured in the Amazon jungle. Then the very believable story of creating chaos in Americas southern boarder and attempting to kill the president. I absolutely love the secondary characters. The CIA agent Brock is absolutely hilarious and determined. Then Sheriff Dixon and Homer. I just knew one of them would not make Utah to the end, heartbreaking. What a great read and a book that must also be listened to.

733 reviews6 followers
January 11, 2018
Spy is more of a "guy" book. The action adventure type. I don't mind reading a book like this occasionally. My biggest problem with this book was the amount of errors.

For example, on page 459 of the hardback edition is the following paragraph:

He saw the familiar face of Agent Hecht standing there on the ground with all the other agents, every of them looking up at him and shaking their heads, all with a big smiles on their faces.
1,150 reviews5 followers
March 8, 2020
The multiple story lines, fast moving action, technology and tactical descriptions got this book a three star rating. However, if I rated it on sexist remarks, it would have gotten one star. Why are women, despite their abilities and toughness objectified? I'm struggling to believe that in a life and death situation a man would think about the curvy breasts on his female compatriot. Several times this blatant sexism ruined an otherwise exciting book.
21 reviews
November 30, 2020
Of the five in the Hawke series I have read, this was by far the best. Some of the others were unnecessarily drawn out and boring in parts. The subject matter explored, with the Mexican and South American themes is not one I have seen. Even though this book was written in 2006, the issues with border security still are a concern today.
Profile Image for See.
559 reviews4 followers
August 13, 2018
A good book by Ted Bell. This book kept all it's different story lines moving to the same end.

This is the fourth book in this series and the first one that keeps the story lines together all the way thru. The previous books were a little jumbled.
Profile Image for Andria.
1,172 reviews
October 1, 2019
It was better and the time line was mostly believable. Still it doesn’t connect with the overall timeline for the series. He is not old enough to have had all the experience needed that the series has said he has had.
Profile Image for Paula J.
119 reviews
January 5, 2020
Excellent!

I love this series. Alex Hawke was recommended to me on a whim, and I’m glad I jumped into the book. The British aspect offers a different perspective, and political thriller lovers will not be disappointed! Highly recommend the adventures and escapades of Alex Hawke.
Profile Image for Michael Alan Grapin.
472 reviews1 follower
January 23, 2020
An incredible terrorist plot against the United States and the heroic band of brothers sent to thwart it are central to the theme. The thrilling story builds slowly to a resounding and satisfying conclusion whilst myriad well crafted characters vie for center stage.
229 reviews6 followers
September 25, 2021
That anyone gave this book more than 2 stars is pathetic.
It's like the author took every bad spy/action movie cliche ever and stuffed it into one book.
I'm still shocked I managed to get through the whole thing. WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD BOOK? WHY DID PEOPLE ACTUALLY PAY MONEY FOR IT?!
372 reviews3 followers
February 27, 2022
Alex Hawke, a British spy, whose research ship was blown up, finds himself captured and enslaved deep in the Amazon jungle. Once he escapes from the unknown army he finds they are on a quest to destroy the U.S.
163 reviews
December 22, 2022
I think this was the first book I've read by Ted Bell. I thought it was a little slow at times but never enough for me to DNF it. The climax was spectacular. I'll be looking for more of Mr. Bell's work.
Profile Image for Johnny.
95 reviews
October 10, 2023
Fun book to read. Enjoyed it immensely. Take a ride through the jungle, hang out in Key West, go to England, visit a friend on the border in Texas! This book goes many places. The threads all converge on Washington, DC. Have fun.
Profile Image for Jim Kitzmiller.
46 reviews
June 15, 2018
My first Ted Bell (Hawke) book. I just ordered three more. Great page turner.

As other reviewer have mentioned, I don't understand all the typos.
476 reviews4 followers
July 19, 2020
Another in the Alex Hawke series. Same formula. This one was especially grim with the tortures and murders
Displaying 1 - 30 of 200 reviews

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