Directive One

Michelle Reagan #2

by Scott Shinberg

The unthinkable happens in the skies over Florida, when someone hijacks the CIA Director’s flight as he returns from his daughter’s wedding.

Michelle Reagan—code name Eden—and an elite team of US Navy SEALs are sent halfway around the world to rescue him. Their high-risk mission to rescue the director and his wife becomes a full-scale assault on a heavily fortified military base. If rescue becomes impossible, Eden will have to carry out the CIA’s best-kept secret: Directive One.

EVOLVED PUBLISHING PRESENTS a non-stop thrill ride with action galore, insights into covert action tradecraft, and descriptions of exotic locales around the globe so detailed you can smell them. Directive One is perfect for fans of Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Dean Koontz, Brad Meltzer, and Len Deighton. [DRM-Free]

Genres: Thriller

325 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 18, 2019

About the author

Amazon International #1 Best-Selling Author

Scott Shinberg has served in leadership positions across the US Government and industry for over twenty-five years. He has worked in and with the US Air Force, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and most "Three-Letter Agencies."

While in government service, he served as an Air Force Intelligence Operations Officer and a Special Agent with the FBI. He lives in Virginia with his wife and sons.

Reviews

[Keyla Damaer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here we go again with Michelle Reagan, code name Eden, and her adventures. This time, the secret agent of the CIA has to deal with the kidnapping of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency while he’s travelling with his wife back home. When someone hijacks the flight where the Director is travelling, a task force to investigate the incident is set up. The entire entourage of the Agency is set on the only task to find the missing Director, but the abductor(s) were very good at deleting all evidence of where they took him and his wife. Surprisingly to her, Eden is asked to lead the team to free the Director when finally the task force is able to identify his and his wife location, after a month of search, an elite team of US Navy SEALs. But her job doesn’t end there. If something goes wrong with the rescuing she will have to carry Directive One.

Directive One by Scott Shinberg is another instalment of the Michelle Reagan series and I loved this one even more than the first. This novel, unlike the previous one, doesn’t use first-person POV, which is not my favourite and was rather jarring. Still, I liked that book though. In this case, the novel is written by a fluid narration with an omniscient POV. And the story leaps, the reader can fly with their imagination with this professional secret agent. As an old fan of Robert Ludlum and Len Deighton, discovered in my teens, I still enjoy reading spy stories, although they all have that taste of the impossible at some point or another when one wonders why there are no major consequences at a global level due to these secret agents ‘ actions. After all, it’s fiction and it still makes me wonder what part it is could be true and whatnot about these stories. I guess I’ll never know.

Reviewed for Readers' Favorite

[Becky Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Book 1, Directive One dives right into the action. Because Confessions of Eden took the time to set up Michelle’s character and her career with multiple missions, this book had more room for one major assignment for which Michelle—code name Eden—volunteered.

I enjoyed this book very much, but I miss her previous team. I didn’t get a good sense of her new teammate, Alex, and I don’t know if that was intentional or if it was just me. I felt like the first book spent a lot of time on Michelle attempting to make an impression on her veteran teammates, and after so many years working together, they became very close, not only as teammates who rely on each other to survive in the field, but as friends. In this book, Michelle and Alex were companionable, but it felt like being teammates was the extent of their relationship.

Shinberg makes the reader feel like they are right next to Michelle every step of the way, and her missions feel realistic. I felt the heat from explosions, the struggle to breathe from the dust and debris in the air, and the feeling of fight or flight when being shot at.

I’m looking forward to Book 3 in the Michelle Reagan series.

[Warren Ingham-Barrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very exciting !

An unconventional lead character, drawn into a very exciting and fast moving plot . Very exciting, and well worth a read !

[Tsamari · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only if 'everything' was just too easy or perfect for the CIA. Even children's books have more suspense than this.
Amongst other things, this was neither entertaining nor educating.