#Review - End of Times by Alan McDermott #Thriller #Suspense

Series: Eva Driscoll # 7
Format: 353 pages, Kindle Edition
Release Date: September 1, 2025
Publisher: Alan Dermott via Amazon.com
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: Thriller, Suspense

Forced to work for the US government, Eva is tasked with rescuing Lithuanian-American hacker Andrius Poska from Russian hands. At stake, the future of the world. Poska’s creation, Juggernaut, threatens to destroy civilization as we know it. The goal is a darker, new beginning. The concentration of world power into the hands of a few. Only Eva Driscoll can prevent the end of times.

End of Times, by author Alan Dermott, is the 7th installment in the author's Eva Driscoll series. This story picks up approximately 11 weeks after the events of Ocean of Wrath. At its core, End of Times thrusts protagonist Eva Driscoll—McDermott's tough-as-nails ex-CIA operative turned rogue asset—back into the fray under duress. Forced into a black-ops mission for the U.S. government, Eva must infiltrate Russian territory to extract Lithuanian-American hacker Andrius Poska, whose groundbreaking AI creation, dubbed "Juggernaut," holds the potential to upend global power structures.

This isn't your garden-variety cyber-thriller; Juggernaut isn't just a tool—it's a harbinger of chaos, engineered for a "darker, new beginning" that funnels world control into the clutches of an elite few. As Eva races against clockwork conspiracies involving corrupt officials, shadowy oligarchs, and high-tech mayhem, culminating in a doomsday scenario that feels eerily prescient in our AI-dominated era. McDermott weaves in familiar faces from prior books, such as the enigmatic Tom Gray, ensuring series loyalists feel rewarded while keeping the plot accessible to newcomers. 

The only player not truly involved in this story is Simon "Sonny" Barnes who was shot in the chest during the events of the previous book, and is unable to do much except babysit Tom's daughter while he, Eva, Farooq, Travis Burke, Rees Culback, and Xi Ling attempt to save the world from megalomaniacs in the US and Russia. If you've followed Eva's arc—from her fugitive days in Run and Hide to dismantling empires in Empires Will Fall—this feels like a natural evolution, ramping up the personal toll on our heroine while expanding the canvas to existential threats. 

Eva remains one of the most compelling female leads in modern thrillers: resourceful, flawed, and unapologetically lethal. She has become someone to call on when the President needs something done efficiently. Juggernaut is portrayed not as a cartoonish villain AI but as a chilling extension of human greed, echoing real-world debates around tech monopolies and surveillance states. 

It's clever writing that elevates the genre, making you ponder the "end of times" long after the final page. Once again, my one real complaint is the number of supporting characters involved in the story. From the ruthless FSB chief to the megalomaniac billionaire to the brilliant Marine who must make a choice, these individuals will likely affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the US.

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#Review - Ocean of Wrath by Alan McDermott #Thriller #Suspense

Series: Eva Driscoll # 6
Format: Kindle, 301 pages
Release Date: November 1, 2023
Publisher: Alan McDermott
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: Thriller / Suspense

Caught up in a deadly shooting, Eva sees that the FBI are floundering in their efforts to find the killers, so she’s forced to take matters into her own hands. What looked like a lone gunman turns out to be just one of many fatal attacks, and the mastermind behind them all has something much, much bigger planned. The lives of eight thousand people are at stake, and Eva must risk everything to save them. 

 

Ocean of Wrath, by Alan McDermott, is the sixth installment in the authors Eva Driscoll series. Key Characters: Eva Driscoll, Sonny Baines, Tom Gray, and his daughter Melissa. This story begins 6 months after Eva and her crew, along with Farooq Nasar, took down the dreaded ESO who tried to control their lives like everyone else in the world. So, for 6 months, Eva aka Nolene Daniels, and Sonny aka Stuart Barnes, have been trying to pick up on some much necessary down time.

After being caught up in a deadly shooting which ended up with Sonny getting shot and badly hurt, Eva sees that the FBI are floundering in their efforts to find the killers. Eva decides to take the matters into her own hands, including using Special Agent Sandy Baker to find out who was responsible. What looked like a lone gunman turns out to be just one of many fatal attacks, and the mastermind behind them all has something much, much bigger planned.

As Eva does what she does best, lay waste to villains, she learns about a group known as Puritan Brotherhood who plans on killing thousands on innocent people while trying to prevent the country from turning on its head like what is happening right now in our streets with thugs and criminals taking over major cities like Memphis and NYC. With an inquisitive FBI agent checking out her new identity, Eva must become even more resourceful if she is going to keep from going to prison for a very long time.

She soon discovers that the Brotherhood has made plans to take over a cruise liner and sink the ship in the middle of the Atlantic. The lives of eight thousand people are at stake, including Tom Gray and his daughter, so Eva risks everything to save them. Meanwhile, Tom has been trying hard for the past 6 months to bring normality back into their lives for the sake of Melissa. 

So, he decides to use the next year to educate Melissa on the world, and its history. The first stop is taking a cruise liner from Miami, to Southampton, with a later stop in Korea. Unfortunately, Tom is once again forced to fight to protect his daughter, while Eva once again puts her life, and her future on the line for her friends. It is fair to say that one must suspend reality for a minute or two while reading these books. 

While the action is fun, and Eva is fantastic as a lead character, there are times when you have to say, nah, that can't happen unless the person belongs to the Special Forces or something similar. Eva is ex-CIA, and she has done some brilliant things to beat the villains. It is apparent that this author is not finished with this series, which is always a good thing. I would love to see Tom and his daughter get a happy ending without always looking over their shoulders to see if someone is coming after them.

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#Review - Empires Will Fall by Alan McDermott #Thriller #Suspense

Series: Eva Driscoll # 5
Format: Kindle, 269 pages
Release Date: February 24, 2023
Publisher: Alan McDermott
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: Thriller / Suspense

Eva Driscoll has discovered a chink in the armor of the ESO, the most powerful organization on the planet. She plans to exploit it to take them down once and for all, but her plans are interrupted when she discovers that the ESO is targeting a doctor and his family, as well as a college student. Keen to use them as leverage against the ESO, Eva strikes first, only to discover a shocking secret that could change the world forever.

 

Empires Will Fall, by author Alan McDermott, is the 5th and likely final chapter in the Eva Driscoll series. Main characters: Eva Driscoll, Simon Sunny Baines, and Tom Gray, along with Travis Burke, Rees Colback and Farooq Naser. All have had their lives fundamentally changed in ways they never could imagine by a group known as the Executive Security Office (ESO), the most powerful and secretive organization on the planet. ESO controls the media, banks, law enforcement, and governments. 

Thankfully, one of the ESO's most dangerous members has been taken off the table. But, the ever present Johnson knows where to find Eva, Tom, Melissa, Rees, Travis, and Sonny. He knows that within a moments notice if they don't drop what they are doing and do what Johnson and ESO wants of them, they will likely end up dead, or someone close to them will be hurt badly. While Tom Gray and his daughter Melissa are making up for lost time after the previous adventures in Orlando, in Dallas, and thinking about the future, Sonia Kline has decided to take up the offer of $3,000 to take part in Doctor Harper's MRNA vaccines trial instead of working for the summer.

Shockingly, Sonia seemingly has a strong resistance to the virus, like those who came in contact with COVID and survived, and has no clue what that means for the most powerful people in the world.  Something so valuable, that Sonia is likely to lose her freedom forever and become nothing more than a victim of circumstances beyond her control. Unless Eve finally figures out a way to defeat and stop ESO. Eve knows that if she and her team, who are all looking for payback on ESO for what they've had to do, they perhaps maybe this will be end of a long nightmare.

There is never a dull moment in one of McDermott's novel even 5 books into a series he still finds ways to keep the reader occupied on what is happening to a variety of characters. There are a whole lot of characters whose lives are literally hanging in the balance from the moment this book begins, to when it ends. Eve, as usual, takes no crap from anyone, let alone Johnson. When she finds a kink in Johnson's plans to keep an eye on them, away we go! Thankfully for those like Sonia, Eva and her allies may be the only thing to save her as well as others.

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#Review - When Death Strikes by Alan McDermott #Thriller #Suspense

Series: Eva Driscoll # 4
Format: Kindle, 281 pages
Release Date:  August 27th 2021
Publisher: Amazon
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: Thriller / Suspense

Eva Driscoll and Simon ‘Sonny’ Baines are living the good life. They have money and each other, but most importantly, their enemies think they are dead. Their new life is shattered when a bar room brawl thrusts them back into the spotlight, and they must evade a psychotic cartel boss and his skilled tracker if they are to survive. But those are not the only dangers they face. Eva and Sonny must battle their way through unforgiving landscapes, but just when they think they are safe, their world turns upside down once more. Tom Gray and his daughter, Melissa, are keeping their heads down in a small Canadian town. Life is good, if not a little boring, until Melissa is targeted by a school bully. That seemingly innocuous encounter leads the ESO to Gray, and this time there’s nowhere to run.

When Death Strikes is the fourth installment in author Alan McDermott's Eva Driscoll series. The story opens with Simon "Sonny" Baines and Eva Driscoll in Lima, Peru where they've been hopping between countries trying to remain in hiding and out of the limelight. Between the two of them, they've lost everyone they've known, while others are in hiding from their ESO (Executive Security Office) nemesis. ESO believes that the stunt that Eva pulled off in a previous novel actually worked and they are supposed to be dead along with Tom Grey. ESO controls the media, banks, law enforcement, and governments.

If they learn that Eva and Sonny are still alive, they will stop at nothing to terminate them on sight. Thanks to a man kidnapping Eva and leaving Sonny for dead, she finds herself in peril, and almost raped and disposed like other girls who have been taken. Sonny is forced to pull off a daring rescue attempt that sends the couple on a wild run for their lives. Unfortunately for the couple, Eva used Sonny's name and now everyone knows they are alive. Eva and Sonny must battle their way through unforgiving landscapes and skilled trackers, but just when they think they are safe, their world turns upside down once more.

Meanwhile in Canada, Tom Gray and his daughter, Melissa, are keeping their heads down in a small Canadian town and moving from town to town to avoid anyone knowing who he really is. Life is good, if not a little boring, until Melissa is targeted by a school bully and hits back. The father of the bully decides to hire a private investigator to dig up as much dirt as he can about about Gray. The encounter leads the ESO discovering that Gray, and his daughter are alive, and this time there's no where to run, or hide. 

ESO wants Eva and Tom to do a job for them. If they do, they'll likely survive. If they don't Sonny and Melissa will pay the ultimate price since they will be held as hostages until the job is done. ESO is sick and tired of Felix Hernandez and wants him removed immediately. Felix has stymied ESO for years, and even slaughter a special ops team that tried to kill him. Joining Eva and Tom is Travis Burke, an ex-Seal Team member who is down on his luck, and running out of options to keep his business going. What better way to blackmail a person than to give them everything they need, but demand that they do jobs for ESO whenever the time arises. 

There's a great deal of action and suspense in this book. It is apparent that the author intends to continue this series since he leaves a huge, and I mean, huge cliffhanger ending with massive implications for the future of Eva, Tom, Sonny, and even Melissa who is an innocent in all of this. Tom is getting up in years and it's time for him to retire and not continue the young man's game of running around the world doing whatever ESO tells him to do. It will be interesting to see how Eva and crew manages to survive the next challenges ahead of them.   

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#Review - Fight To Survive by Alan McDermott #Thrillers

Series: Eva Driscoll (#3)
Format: E-Galley, 268 pages
Release Date: August 6, 2019
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thrillers

She’s working for her enemies. Or so they think…

Ex-CIA assassin Eva Driscoll has found a new life in Australia and believes she’s outrun the Executive Security Office, the most powerful and secretive organization on the planet. But the ESO has been watching her every move and when they approach her with a high-risk mission in North Korea, Eva is forced to co-operate with the organization she once vowed to destroy.

But releasing a high-ranking defector proves costly, and Driscoll is captured and imprisoned in a secret camp on the Chinese border. What she witnesses there will haunt her forever . . . so she decides to take matters into her own hands. But how long can she keep the ESO thinking she’s working in their interests rather than her own?

When her handlers become suspicious, Eva knows time is not on her side. Can she defeat the evil at the heart of the camp and get out alive—or will this final installment really be her last?

 

Fight to Survive is the third installment in author Alan McDermott's Eva Driscoll series. It has been 2 years since Eva Driscoll thought she had gotten out from under the constant surveillance of ESO (Executive Security Office) which basically controls the highest levels of government agencies around the world. Eva is living off the grid in Melbourne, Australia trying to avoiding attachments as she mourns the loss of her lover Carl.

But, when she steps into a domestic situation, ESO is quick to remind her that she hasn't gotten away from them and her safety has been all but an illusion. But, this time, they don't want to kill her, they want to employ her. They need her special skill set for a very high risk operation to extract a valued defector from North Korea. As if this was going to be anything but easy, Eva is quickly captured, tortured, and sent to a political prisoner camp where she witnesses some really horrible things before escaping.

Not only does she need to escape and fulfill her mission, what she discovers going on in the prison shocks her to her core and it becomes her personal mission to do something about it and bring justice to the victims. She collects Sonny Barnes, who is now living in New Zealand, as well as Farooq Naser, an exceptional encrypted software expert, in order to take down the prison that appears to be selling organs to rich Chinese and others who need a transplant quickly. Sonny, like Eva, is mourning the loss of his best friend Len who died on their last mission.

I will say this again, this is a series in which you need to suspend reality and all logic in order to enjoy the book. There are some emotional moments in this book. How can there not be after what Eva, Sonny, and Farooq experienced in the previous installment? Is it too soon for Eva to move on after she put her heart into loving Carl? I absolutely believe that you should read the books in order. Yes, the author does a good job of explaining what ESO is, and why they are so damn intent on taking Eva out, but to understand what has happened to drive Eva vs ESO is definitely necessary.

There are two things that really itched my crawl. Why in any Gods name would you travel to North Korea? What would drive a person to put their lives on the line in order to believe that you won't be spied on, bugged, and arrested if you step one foot over the line? The second part is the human organ trafficking that is a real thing folks. It is scary. You can blame countries like China and Pakistan, but there are rich people all over the world who are just as guilty for not wanting to wait on a donor list for a new organ. 

The ending is a bit on the curious side. Will there be a fourth installment? Do we, as readers, really need a fourth book in order to be satisfied? Or, do we want one final Eva vs ESO battle royal in which anything can happen?

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#Review - Seek and Destroy by Alan McDermott #Mystery #Thriller

Series: Eva Driscoll # 2
Format: E-Book, 272 pages
Release Date: November 14, 2018
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: Mystery, Thriller


She got away once. They can’t let it happen again.
 
Eva Driscoll is on the run. She has a new identity, and the best part of $20m liberated from the CIA. Henry Langton is dead but his sinister allies are circling, and not even a presidential pardon can help Eva against an organization that operates above the White House.

With agents around the globe and no tactic off limits, Langton’s men are calling the shots. When they track down ex-CIA computer expert Farooq Naser and threaten Andrew Harvey and Tom Gray, Eva knows they will come for her next. She needs to run—and fast—but what chance does one woman have against the most powerful group in the United States, with just a few ex-spooks and a couple of mercenaries on her side?

But her pursuers should know that, even backed into a corner, Eva Driscoll is not the kind of prey to give up without a fight. But will it mean hurting those she cares for the most?

 

Seek and Destroy is the second installment in author Alan McDermott's Eva Driscoll series. Months after the events of Run and Hide, Eva Driscoll and her team (Farooq, Sonny, Len Smart, Carl Huff, and Rees Colback) are living under the radar with new ID's since being pardoned by the American President. But, things are about to get very dangerous for everyone. Henry Langdon, the dark, shady man behind most of the governments of the world, and who was presumed to be dead by almost everyone, is very much alive and itching for payback. 

He especially hates Eva, the former CIA operative who brought the richest man in the world down. When Farooq, Eva’s IT maestro, is tracked down in India, his friend is murdered by the Langdon's people in order to force Eva and the others out into the open. When that fails, Langdon's people target retired mercenary Tom Gray, and then his friend, MI5 agent Andrew Harvey, kidnapping their daughters in order to get them to give Eva up. I have to be fair with my review. 

This is more of a Tom Gray story than one that belongs under the heading of Eva Driscoll's. Tom, Sonny, and Len have a history. So, when Tom and his daughter are targeted and things don't go as expected, it will take an act of God to stop him from doing what's needed into order to bring down Langdon and his entire organization. Even though Eva proved herself to Sonny and Len, with his daughters life on the line, it is Tom who proves the much necessary leadership.

From India, to England, to Italy, to a secretive island in the Pacific, Tom, Eva and their team must infiltrate Langdon's highly protected base of operations and rescue two little girls from finding pain and suffering. It is fair to say that one must suspend disbelief at times while reading this story. The story is fast paced, and takes large jumps from one locale to the other. The author really uses Tom Gray, maybe as a farewell, in order to show that even when he's supposed to be retired, you can't mess with him, or his family without paying a steep price. I would also encourage readers to please read Run and Hide so that you understand what has happened to Eva and her crew that has sent them on a virtual war against a man who knows where all the bodies are buried because he ordered their removal.

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#Review - Run and Hide (Eva Driscoll #1) by Alan McDermott #Thriller

Series: Eva Driscoll # 1
Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Release Date: August 22, 2018
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Source: Publisher
Genre: Action & Adventure

There’s only so long you can run for your life.
Eva Driscoll is used to chasing down bad guys, but now the bad guys are chasing her. She knows they won’t stop until she’s dead.

After her brother is killed in a faked suicide, Driscoll teams up with ex-soldier Rees Colback, the one person who can help her find answers. Together they’re determined to uncover why members of his Special Forces squad are dying in mysterious circumstances.

But with every agency in the country in hot pursuit, their only choice is to flee.
The clock is ticking. They can’t run forever. It’s time to make a choice: kill or be killed…

Run and Hide is the first installment in new to me author Alan McDermott's Eva Driscoll series. Protagonist Eva Driscoll has been trained to be a lethal force to be reckoned with. But, after her Special Forces brother Jeff is murdered in a cover up operation, she will stop at nothing to expose the truth. But, is she ready to face a foe so formidable it has the government in its pocket? This is a fast paced, action packed story that will grip your attention from the first page and hold it right thru the disturbing ending.

In New York City, former Army Special Forces combat veteran Rees Colbeck encounters men who claim they are from Homeland Security. After escaping using techniques learned in a previous life, he escapes and a thrilling chase ensues. In a stunning reversal of fortunes, Rees finds himself being rescued by a woman who tells him that he is being hunted by those who operate and run the US government called ESO. He will learn that Eva is the sister of Jeff Driscoll who served with him, and is now dead as is the others that he worked with.

Rees has no idea why they have targeted him, or the others, but allies himself with Eva who seems as though she can more than take care of herself. In fact, Eva has a way of introducing people to fatal accidents and making others look like amateurs. Eva trained with the CIA to do wet work for them. She may be the most dangerous operative to ever live, and she knows where the bodies were buried which makes her a target for those who want to keep her from revealing everything that she knows. Eva isn't perfect. But, she is damn good at wiggling out of life and death situations.

Along with too smart to be appreciated computer genius Farooq Nasser, and two former British Mi-5 members, Sonny Baines and Len Smart who work for former SAS leader Tom Gray, the group targets a conspiracy that has its hands in ever single level of the American government, banks, and other assets as well. With a snap of their fingers, this group, led by Henry Langston, can eliminate anyone they think goes against their prosperity, and can make or break a presidential candidates chances of winning the White House.

Run and Hide is well written story with plenty of suspense and action for everyone. Eva's eyes get a rude awakening in this story. She once thought she was doing work that was in the best interest of her country. But, after she learns about her brother and the others, and looking at her own actions, she understands that she was just a piece in a much larger game that will pit her against her former agency, as well as those she once worked with. A bit of a warning. There are so many different characters who get involved in telling this story. Conspiracy theories, money, greed, power in the hands of a cabal? Yep, it's all in here.

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