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24: Live Another Day #3
24: Trial by Fire
An all-new 24 adventure by New York Times bestselling author Dayton Ward, 24:Trial by Fire. Receiving 73 Emmy Award nominations over eight seasons, 24 revolutionized the format of TV dramas on a global scale. Before London... Before CTU... Before the clock started ticking...
1994: Tateos Gadjoyan, an Armenian arms merchant, has been a target of the Central Intelligence Agency for years. Efforts to thwart his selling of American military weapons to terrorists and other enemies of the United States have been unsuccessful. Now, after months of careful planning, two undercover agents have infiltrated Gadjoyan's inner circle. Soon, they will have sufficient evidence to seize the arms dealer and remove a clear and present danger to the United States.
On the small Japanese island of Okinawa, Gadjoyan's representatives are concluding a deal with Miroji Jimura. Jimura's hatred of Americans is absolute, and he's only too happy to profit from sales of their own weapons to be used against them.
When a rival of Jimura's sabotages the arms deal, one of the CIA's undercover assets is killed, threatening the case against Gadjoyan and revealing a far greater menace to American security. The only thing standing against this new, immediate danger is a single, junior CIA agent named Jack Bauer.
1994: Tateos Gadjoyan, an Armenian arms merchant, has been a target of the Central Intelligence Agency for years. Efforts to thwart his selling of American military weapons to terrorists and other enemies of the United States have been unsuccessful. Now, after months of careful planning, two undercover agents have infiltrated Gadjoyan's inner circle. Soon, they will have sufficient evidence to seize the arms dealer and remove a clear and present danger to the United States.
On the small Japanese island of Okinawa, Gadjoyan's representatives are concluding a deal with Miroji Jimura. Jimura's hatred of Americans is absolute, and he's only too happy to profit from sales of their own weapons to be used against them.
When a rival of Jimura's sabotages the arms deal, one of the CIA's undercover assets is killed, threatening the case against Gadjoyan and revealing a far greater menace to American security. The only thing standing against this new, immediate danger is a single, junior CIA agent named Jack Bauer.
- GenresFiction
336 pages, Paperback
First published August 23, 2016
About the author
Dayton Ward
106 books320 followersDayton is a software developer, having become a slave to Corporate America after spending eleven years in the U.S. Marine Corps. When asked, he’ll tell you that he left home and joined the military soon after high school because he’d grown tired of people telling him what to do all the time.
Ask him sometime how well that worked out.
In addition to the numerous credits he shares with friend and co-writer Kevin Dilmore, he is the author of the Star Trek novels In the Name of Honor and Open Secrets, the science fiction novels The Last World War and The Genesis Protocol, and short stories which have appeared in the first three Star Trek: Strange New Worlds anthologies, the Yard Dog Press anthology Houston, We’ve Got Bubbas, Kansas City Voices Magazine and the Star Trek: New Frontier anthology No Limits. Though he currently lives in Kansas City with wife Michi and daughters Addison and Erin, Dayton is a Florida native and still maintains a torrid long-distance romance with his beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Ask him sometime how well that worked out.
In addition to the numerous credits he shares with friend and co-writer Kevin Dilmore, he is the author of the Star Trek novels In the Name of Honor and Open Secrets, the science fiction novels The Last World War and The Genesis Protocol, and short stories which have appeared in the first three Star Trek: Strange New Worlds anthologies, the Yard Dog Press anthology Houston, We’ve Got Bubbas, Kansas City Voices Magazine and the Star Trek: New Frontier anthology No Limits. Though he currently lives in Kansas City with wife Michi and daughters Addison and Erin, Dayton is a Florida native and still maintains a torrid long-distance romance with his beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 24, 2019
At about 300 pages this should be a quick and exciting read, but somehow feels longer.
Jack is undercover in Japan (the whole story is set there, amongst the Japanese islands and US bases) when things go horribly wrong. As a new and junior agent he is forced to maintain his cover between warring gangs and try to stop a major incident.
This took a long long time to get going and only a far better second half saved it. Although set over 24 hours (obviously) it doesn’t quite capture the hourly cliff hangers of the series and misses the pace it needed.
Jack is undercover in Japan (the whole story is set there, amongst the Japanese islands and US bases) when things go horribly wrong. As a new and junior agent he is forced to maintain his cover between warring gangs and try to stop a major incident.
This took a long long time to get going and only a far better second half saved it. Although set over 24 hours (obviously) it doesn’t quite capture the hourly cliff hangers of the series and misses the pace it needed.
April 28, 2026
24 has long been my all time favorite television show, and Jack Bauer probably my favorite action hero. This book follows him during one of his earliest documented missions, that takes him around the island of Okinawa chasing arms dealers. I've read a few Star Trek novels from Dayton Ward before, so I figured this one would be solid. It's not that it isn't... the writing style just really slowed me down. He explains so many characters thoughts and actions down to the most menial level, where I felt that the book could have been trimmed to half its length. I found myself only reading a few pages at a time before putting it down, which is the opposite of how a 24 book should go. I finally made an effort to push through to the end during the final third of the novel, and the action definitely picks up there.
I think another one of my issues was the amount of minor characters with difficult names. It got to the point that I couldn't keep track of them anymore and just decided not to care and keep going. The names were Japanese and probably Russian, so they weren't just "Dave" and "Bill" or anything like that, but it just got to the point where there were too many to differentiate.
The real time aspect is also only fleetingly mentioned, which is typically one of the greatest sources of tension in any 24 story. You get vague references to the entire book taking place over a single day, but that's about it. I've read all but one of the rest of the 24 novels, and none of them had this issue to my recollection.
Jack also isn't in the book quite as much as you'd expect, but there are a good amount of other decent original characters to fill the gaps. I also thought the main villain's motivation was a bit different than usual, which I enjoyed. By the end, Bauer whoops his usual amount of ass and saves the day, but not all the loose ends are tied up, which actually made this deal a bit more realistic.
I think another one of my issues was the amount of minor characters with difficult names. It got to the point that I couldn't keep track of them anymore and just decided not to care and keep going. The names were Japanese and probably Russian, so they weren't just "Dave" and "Bill" or anything like that, but it just got to the point where there were too many to differentiate.
The real time aspect is also only fleetingly mentioned, which is typically one of the greatest sources of tension in any 24 story. You get vague references to the entire book taking place over a single day, but that's about it. I've read all but one of the rest of the 24 novels, and none of them had this issue to my recollection.
Jack also isn't in the book quite as much as you'd expect, but there are a good amount of other decent original characters to fill the gaps. I also thought the main villain's motivation was a bit different than usual, which I enjoyed. By the end, Bauer whoops his usual amount of ass and saves the day, but not all the loose ends are tied up, which actually made this deal a bit more realistic.
April 3, 2021
For some reason it did not flow easily or well in the beginning for me. It seemed to jump around and introduce several different groups that were a part of the story. As well, each group was different and had different characters many of which were undercover and using aliases which led to some confusion. However, the last 4th of the book settled into a rhythm that was much more cohesive.
February 16, 2018
one of the best yet!! action packed and kept moving
December 28, 2018
Thought is was good to occupie me on train journey but its nothing special kinda drags to say its only 300 pages long.
July 28, 2021
A good read for any fan of the TV show, delving into Jack Bauer's backstory before CTU, and nicely paced and well written, seperated into 24 chapters.
February 7, 2017
The book feels like it's using the story structure of the first couple seasons of the TV show, where every character get's his/her own storyline. I didn't need to keep reading about how scared the kidnapped family was. Additionally, while Jack crosses paths with several of the story's victims, knows that they are victims (even a couple kids) it's not until the last 50 or 60 pages that Jack starts acting like Jack and goes into "rescue mode".
One major "character" is left out of the book. Each chapter's beginning is missing the line "The Following takes place between......." A minor point, but it's one of the touches that make 24 be 24.
One major "character" is left out of the book. Each chapter's beginning is missing the line "The Following takes place between......." A minor point, but it's one of the touches that make 24 be 24.
February 7, 2017
Trial by fire is een boek uit de Live another day serie. De voorgaande delen speelde zich af tussen seizoen 8 en 9, maar dit deel speelt zich jaren voor de gebeurtenissen van seizoen 1 af. Dit boek had in de declassified serie gepast.
Trial by fire speelde zich af in Japan waar Jack als jonge CIA agent undercover agent een bende infiltreert dat aan wapen handel doet. Het verhaal is spannend en weet te vermaken maar echt het niveau van zijn voorgangers haalt het niet. Een leuke quick read.
Trial by fire speelde zich af in Japan waar Jack als jonge CIA agent undercover agent een bende infiltreert dat aan wapen handel doet. Het verhaal is spannend en weet te vermaken maar echt het niveau van zijn voorgangers haalt het niet. Een leuke quick read.
July 4, 2024
A fastpaced, enjoyable read for fans of action books and the 24 series. As good as a novelisation gets.
March 25, 2017
It's fine. That's literally the summation for all of these '24' novels, there's not much to them and so much so that they kinda seem pointless. I expected more from this, and I don't really know why, but in the end in a week or so I won't be able to distinguish it from all the others in the series that I read. I kinda disliked in this one that they didn't really hit on any of the "time restrictions" the series is all about, where earlier books in the season would at least show the time frame at the beginning of the chapter and others actually broke it up within the chapter at specific times, giving a place time to help further set the scene, whereas this one actually seemed a bit muddled and hard to follow at first because it wasn't clear where it was jumping to. I know this is the nitpicky-iest of nitpicks, but I'm a '24' nerd, so whatever.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews