Panic Switch

Anthony "Patch" Pacino Series, Book 2

By: Michael DiMercurio

Narrated by: Joseph Robert Courtemanche

Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

The oily and brackish waters of the Russian Northern Fleet submarine base part for the passage of the colossal special purpose Omega II-class submarine Belgorod, on a mission to hold the United States hostage. This gigantic submarine is armed with three Poseidon unmanned submersibles, each with a 10-megaton warhead. Her goal: placing them offshore in US ports in a nuclear-blackmail chess move.

In response, the United States dispatches the newest special operations attack submarine, the Virginia-class USS New Jersey, which lies in wait to follow Belgorod under the polar icecap. Because every submariner knows that what happens under the ice...never happened.

Legendary former admiral and current National Security Advisor Michael Pacino and his son Anthony, a combat-decorated veteran of undersea warfare, return in this epic novel of submarine-versus-submarine warfare.

©2023 Michael DiMercurio (P)2023 David N. Wilson

authors knowledge of subs

n/amm ......ttttiii uu III III oo III III eeeegut to the back of my

Another great book

A classic submarine tale just like all the prior books. A Great Read and there’s a 15 word minimum!!

Politicians VS Navy

I love this book. The characters are amazing and the story was just as good. I couldn’t stop listening to it. I can’t wait for the next book in the series!!

Renorockit
Reno, NV.

Awesome writing, as always.

I have thoroughly enjoyed DiMercurio's writing for years. This book will not disappoint you either.

Good story

The story is good and the action enjoyable. The women and the relationships are not realistic. But I doubt many people are reading this book for dialogue and character development. 

Good but not great

Narrator please stop trying to voice the female characters. Story was good but rushed. A lot happening to the characters & side stories that really weren't necessary. However I'm a big fan of the author. Look forward to the next book.

irritating reader voice

good grief, the readers attempts at a female voice are hilarious!
unfortunately it's not supposed to be a comedy

The submarine parts were good, everything else was a little cringy.

So the actual submarining stuff was pretty good. It’s fun to listen to. This isn’t War and Peace and I know there’s a lot of artistic liberties taken, but DiMercurio has been compared to Clancy by Publisher’s Weekly. Let’s just say he has a long way to go before he can fill those shoes.

Just about everything else about this book and the previous book in the series is really awkward and cringey and poorly written imo.

The narrator is bleh, I don’t think his squeaky impersonation of female characters particularly the Russian ones is really needed, it’s quite off putting imo. A good comparison is how with HBO’s Chernobyl, the production team decided against using stereotypical Russian accents spoken by the actors because they felt it would have lessened the gravity of the situation. Same thing applies here - a man impersonating a squeaky voiced woman in a wartime scenario is more funny and annoying than anything. It really detracts from the audio book.

I don’t get where the explicit sex scenes or the descriptions of the female characters and how voluptuous they are really fit into things as well. This is the third book of the author’s that I’ve listened to and it’s a reoccurring theme in the author’s writing. I don’t know if this is supposed to be a military thriller story or an amateur smut novel. It’s made all the more awkward by the narrator reciting the scenes. It feels like those parts were written by a horny teenager.

The character growth and development is not very good, without spoiling it too much there are a handful of characters from the previous book that don’t make it to the conclusion in this one, and honestly, I could care less that they died. They were that shallow and unmemorable.

There’s also a pretty glaring plot hole mid way through the book that isn’t really explained. The story itself just feels very juvenile and not well vetted or written or evaluated before it was published. Like, there are things that happen because “Aha!” and that the good guys always win, the writing for that part feels very weak and half baked.

The whole nickname/callsign thing for the characters is really weird, it reads like they desperately wanted to be fighter pilots instead of submariners.

Overall, it’s a fun listen, but all around poorly written with shallow, forgettable characters, a shoddy story and some really awkward and juvenile moments.