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Greg Rucka
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Alpha (Jad Bell) Kindle Edition

by Greg Rucka (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 out of 5 stars 233 ratings

Jonathan 'Jad' Bell has spent a lifetime in the US army. He can be relied on to get the job done, whatever happens, whatever the cost.

So when someone needs to go undercover at the nation's biggest amusement park, Jad is the obvious choice. Aside from dealing with fights and missing children, his main responsibility is to prevent the nightmare scenario from coming to pass.

This is the nightmare scenario:

A group of well-trained, highly motivated terrorists infiltrate the park. They cut off all escape routes. They take hostages. They ensure every camera in the world is trained on Wilsonville...and then they turn it into a bloodbath.

And on the day the nightmare becomes real, Jad and his team are all that stands between a band of ruthless killers and thousands of innocent people... including Jad's estranged wife and daughter.

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  1. Book 1 of 2
    Jad Bell
  2. Print length
    305 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Mulholland Books
  5. Publication date
    24 May 2012
  6. File size
    835 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Review

"Greg Rucka is a refreshingly bold talent."--Dennis Lehane

"One of our best writers."--Lee Child

"A true professional."-- Chicago Tribune

"Read Greg Rucka. It's that simple. Open one of his books and what you've got is a fistful of dynamite."-- The Cincinnati Enquirer

"ALPHA is hands down, the most exciting, adrenaline-pumping, butt-kicking novel I've read in years. Rucka is the real deal. If this one doesn't make you stay up late rooting for the good guys, you don't have a heartbeat. Highly recommended!"--Christopher Reich, "New York Times" bestselling author of "Rules of Deception "and "Numbered Account"

"An interesting setting, a liable hero, an appropriately clever villain, and a gripping story. A real corker."-- Booklist

"Greg Rucka is one of the best writers in the world. The fact that he is so good in so many different media is a testament to that fact. No one media can hold him. Any new project of his is a call for pop culture celebration."--Brian Michael Bendis, writer of "Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four"

"Pulse-pounding....Rucka mixes suspense and an alarmingly realistic plot with ease."-- Publishers Weekly

"Rucka gets his new series featuring Ex-Delta Force Master Sergeant Jad Bell off to a smashing start with this pitch-perfect thriller. This lean, mean thriller with just the right amount of character development and unexpected complications will appeal to all who enjoy this genre but particularly to readers who like a strong hero along the lines of Lee Child's Jack Reacher. Highly recommended."-- Library Journal (starred review)

About the Author

Greg Rucka is the New York Times bestselling author of a dozen novels, including the Atticus Kodiak and Tara Chace series, and has won multiple Eisner awards for his graphic novels. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and children.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0082HUVXY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mulholland Books (24 May 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 835 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 305 pages
  • Customer reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 233 ratings

About the author

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Greg Rucka

Greg Rucka

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Greg Rucka is an award-winning author of comics, novels, and screenplays, including 2020’s The Old Guard, starring Charlize Theron. He is the author of some two-dozen novels, including the Atticus Kodiak series (Keeper, Finder, Smoker, Shooting at Midnight, Patriot Acts, and Walking Dead) as well as the Queen & Country series (A Gentelman’s Game, Private Wars, and The Last Run) which expands upon his Eisner-winning series of the same name, published by Oni Press.

He is the co-creator of the series Lazarus (with Michael Lark,) and Black Magick (with Nicola Scott) as well as The Old Guard stories with co-creator Leandro Fernandez. He is a multiple GLAAD, Eisner, and Harvey Award winner. His writing has included stories for both Marvel and DC, as well as penning three "middle-reader" Star Wars novellas.

Rucka was born in San Francisco and raised on the Monterey Peninsula. He earned his A.B. in English from Vassar College, and his MFA from USC. His first novel was published when he was 24, his first comic book series — Whiteout, from Oni Press — some five years later. He is married to writer Jennifer Van Meter. They have two children and one dog.

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4.3 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 June 2013
    Verified Purchase
    If you're a fan of Rucka's previous books then you won't be dissapointed with this one. Fast paced, exciting and very tense. I hope this is the first in a new series!
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  • Adrià
    4.0 out of 5 stars Alpha by Rucka
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 July 2012
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    A very interesting and thrilling story by the amazing writer Greg Rucka. The story ends with an open future for a next novel. A great character, Jad Bell.
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  • Subcommandante Marcos Mumford
    3.0 out of 5 stars Not terrible but not great
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 February 2024
    Verified Purchase
    I'm a fan of Rucka comics like The Old Guard and Lazarus, but none of the originality or style in those are here. There's some cool tradecraft stuff and interesting diversions early on, like the history of the Disney company surrogate and the story of the sleeper agent, but the novel quickly turns into a potboiler. Every US military and Islamic terrorist cliche is wheeled out.

    These books can be entertaining but they're all the same. I expected more from Rucka in all honesty. Some of the dialogue sings but the prose is dry.
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  • Ray Garraty
    3.0 out of 5 stars good commercial fiction
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 August 2013
    Jad Bell, a former military man, who fighted in wars in the elite U.S. troops, now unemployed, remained without a job not a long time. From the head of one of the secret services Jed gets an offer - to become a consulting security manager in one of the largest entertainment parks of the country. Bell feels that something is wrong, but accepts the offer, and the management of the park happily takes Bell to work as an undercover. The park is similar to Disneyland: thousands of visitors every day, billions dollars profit every year, maximum what can happen is one of the kids falls down and scratches his knee. The only thing that gives a signal to the alarm is a dead body of one of park employees found next to a park, and there are serious concerns that a man was killed in the park.

    In parallel Rucka tells the story of a young man from Odessa, recruited by a terrorist organization, which makes a young man an American, transporting him to the United States, sending to serve in the American army, and then to university. The Ukrainian, whose real name is Matias, will be a leader of the capture of the park, and Bell will try to neutralize the terrorists, especially since on the day of attack in the park comes Jad's ex-wife and his daughter Athena.

    The book has been compared with "Die Hard", and they do have similarities. The resemblance is superficial, as in "Die Hard" not for the first time the plot about the release of the hostages by a tough guy has been used. Bell, as the military (even then, probably, the word "former" is superfluous), leads a team of soldiers, all of whom serve in the U.S. Special Forces. The point is, a team of terrorists was trained in the same Special Forces. Rucka surprises, when makes Bell's daughter deaf: Athena and her classmates come to the park from the school for deaf children.

    Rucka will surprise the reader a lot of times, especially you here will be tormenting by those questions: who are these terrorists and what they need. Although Rucka also tells the story from the bad guy's point of view, it does not make the situation clearer. The novel will be read in two sitings, as the pages will fly.

    But still: «Alpha» is a good commercial fiction, but not just a good fiction. Too many cliches here, too much calculated, and you can see, how an editor and writer have work on the plot. There is the violence there, but it is harmless. There are twists, but not too much, so that the reader won't be confused.

    Last year, Mulholland Books published two books by Duane Swierczynski, «Fun & Games» and «Hell & Gone». So Swierczynski played with cliches and patterns far more successful, he much less worried about what reader would love and what not. His books are more fun and more original.

    «Alpha» is a book from that category, so it is impossible to close the book before the ending, but I hoped it would be something more than this.
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  • Gml
    2.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading if you've nothing else!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 July 2012
    If your a fan of vince Flynn, Lee Childs or similar, prepare to be let down.
    It's not the worst book of the genre I've ever read and it actually starts out pretty well.
    It develops half way in to an ordeal to read, with a plot that has lots of holes and very obvious twists that didn't engage me. I actually found myself wading to the end of the book to find it ends pretty abruptly and leaves more questions than answers. As a throw away holiday read is about all I would recommend it for!
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Mel Odom
    5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Characters and Plotting
    Reviewed in the United States on 18 June 2012
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    Greg Rucka knows how to write an action-packed story filled with interesting characters, and he does it again in his latest book, Alpha. The story is begging to be made into a summer blockbuster movie. Wilsonville (a theme park a lot like Disneyland) is a well-thought out background to the events in the novel. Rucka provides a detailed backstory involving the "characters" at the park and how they all fit together. I'm not sure where he got his information on the people and the restraints of being one of those characters, but I've talked to a student who actually did that at one point and Rucka's information is spot on. Wilsonville came alive in the pages, and the author uses most of those setting in exciting and entertaining ways.

    I really like his main character Jad (Jonathan) Bell as well. He's quiet and a deep thinker as well as a man of action. The relationship he has with his ex-wife and daughter isn't anything new by any means, but Rucka somehow deepens and enriches this stock relationship.

    One of the twists in the story is that Bell's daughter is deaf. I didn't expect that and the reader is actually caught up in the middle of the scene of her introduction before realizing what's actually going on, but Rucka's writing is so smooth that you don't really notice until you do, and then the transition is organic. That lack of hearing puts a fine edge on the relationship, showing how it is limited in some ways, and at the same time provides another plot twist later on.

    The villains are well done for the most part. Gabriel Fuller's situation is moving and I found myself wanting to root for him even though I was shown he was a full-blown killer. I loved his insight into what it was like to be the character of Pooch, and I suspect a lot of other actors playing similar roles have the same love/hate relationships with their jobs. However, I still feel mostly in the dark where the Uzbek and his mysterious boss are concerned. Since this is a first book in a series, I figure we'll get to know more about them later and the curiosity I'm feeling is supposed to be there. But it's a long time to wait between books.

    Rucka's use of military operations is good too. He's always been good at bringing a law enforcement agency (Gotham Central, a police department in Batman's home town) or a spy agency (Queen & Country, an MI6 organization) to life in the comics he's written, as well as in later novels featuring characters from the latter. The movements of the team and the decisions Bell makes come to life as the story progresses and tightens down the tension considerably.

    This book is a great summer read and people who enjoy it are probably going to be waiting as anxiously as I am for the next installment.
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  • Marcos Luz
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good pace, military plot. Great book if you have spare time.
    Reviewed in Brazil on 22 April 2019
    Verified Purchase
    A friend of mine said that the author is a good comic
    book writer and had written some good books too. I bought this one and began to read it waiting for nothing special from it. After have been reading the book for the last couple of days I could say that I kind of liked it. It’s not a splendid, unique book but it has a good pace, a military plot (bad guys trying to explode a park and send a
    message up against the united states versus the good ones), and well set of characters. Recommend
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  • JD
    4.0 out of 5 stars Great, taut, action book
    Reviewed in the United States on 25 June 2012
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    This is my first exposure to Greg Rucka as a writer of prose. He is, quite simply, one of my favorite comic authors. His skills are diverse; Rucka has met real to surreal in Gotham Central, exposed a world of reality that is far outside the imagination of most everyday people in Whiteout, and imagined a plausible, slightly gory, spy world in Queen & Country.

    Here he succeeds in a different way. His stated goal was to pay homage to Die Hard and its ilk. However, Greg Rucka's need for plausibility keeps this story on what seems to be a backbone of reality (let's face it, only a few of us know what is real about our Special Forces, and those few aren't taking). Thus, although Alpha is a great action story, it is a much better character study. How do seasoned Special Forces and CIA operatives use their instincts to detect right from wrong before their suspicions are corroborated? How does a leader of men with equally rare and potent skills lead? These are the fascinating questions an excellent work of fiction like Alpha can provide for us.

    It has been noted by others that, at the end of this book, we know enough about Jad that we want to see more of him. This is true, but I would liked to have known more about this character already. I trust in Greg Rucka enough to see this through - clearly Alpha is a first act. One of the best things that the best comic writers learn is how to script for the long haul. It would be easy enough to give up after a few issues of James Robinson's Starman, BK Vaughan's Y The Last Man, or Rucka's own Checkmate. Those books started out solid, but quickly became brilliant. I expect the same from the rest of this series.

    Send us the next one soon, Greg!
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  • TMStyles
    5.0 out of 5 stars Rucka Grabs You On Page One And Never Lets Go
    Reviewed in the United States on 17 June 2012
    Verified Purchase
    Greg Rucka is one of the most creative and readable authors working today. His stand alones are often great and I love his Atticus Kodiak series--which are too infrequent for my desires. But in "Alpha", Rucka is apparently debuting a new series character named "Jad" Bell, former Delta, who now hires out for cause and country. Based on this initial effort, Bell is a character well worth watching (reading) in that he is highly trained, intuitive, conflicted with a still unclear back story, and very deadly. He leads a team of four former co-warriors, each with skills and training that make them a most formidable foe.

    Rucka has a knack for seizing on some element of everyday life around which to build his thrillers and in "Alpha", that practice is continued as Wilsonville, the world's largest theme park located in Southern California--think Disneyland on steroids--comes under an apparent terrorist attack. Jad Bell along with one of his team members is working undercover in the park as secret governmental leaders are covering several theme parks as possible targets for a rumored terrorist attack. A sleeper agent has been "awakened" to plant a dirty bomb in Wilsonville at the height of summer attendance, capture some hostages, and issue vague demands for release of world terrorist prisoners. But as Bell springs into action, he wonders if this is the real end game or if something even more sinister is afoot?

    Oh, and you want complications? How about the fact that Bell's former wife, their hearing impaired daughter, and her deaf classmates are in the park and become hostages by the terrorists. The evolution of Bell's character as this deadly warrior has to deal with familial roadblocks is fascinating reading. Another complication is the question of who is financing this enterprise and who, on the inside, is actually a part of the scheme? Rucka employs twists, double crosses, and sleight of hand to keep readers wondering who really is who they say they are and who really trusts whom--among both the good guys and the bad guys. With continual impressive chess-like maneuvering between Bell and his deadly antagonist, readers must speculate as to who will ultimately survive on both sides of this conflict.

    Rucka is an adept story teller who employs tight plotting and fast precise pacing to build a sense of relentless suspense and tension. His knowledge of weaponry and military tactics and strategy gives a level of authenticity to his books as does his highly believable dialogue and characterizations. His characters, both good and bad, become invested in the reader as Rucka fleshes them with just enough back story to keep readers interested yet withholding detail that will emerge in future stories. I highly recommend "Alpha" to readers of the suspense/thriller genre and I welcome the new character of Jad Bell to what I hope is a long productive series by Greg Rucka.
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  • Mike Breeze
    4.0 out of 5 stars A Gripping Story
    Reviewed in the United States on 27 April 2025
    Verified Purchase
    There was a mortification. And the good guys won. The only thing I didn't mikecalabrese setup. I thought the the park named Wilsonville was really Disneyland. It wasn't until 40% in that the author mentioned Disneyland as another park.
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