The Enigma Dragon: A CATS Tale: The Enigma Series, Volume 9 (AudioBook) - Book Review

Breakfield and Burkey’s audiobook The Enigma Dragon: A CATS Tale (The Enigma Series Book 9) is another winner for their series. The large cast of characters who inhabit the novel is brought to life by narrator Derek Shoales as he adds a distinctive voice to each of them. He even has to provide a voice for a cool talking supercomputer named ICABOD. The novel is another Breakfield and Burkey techno-thriller with the CATS team (Cyber Assassin Technology Services) involved in a tale of a serious attempt to trade oil and uranium between North Korea and Iran. Julie and Juan Rodríguez’s CATS team is dispatched to multiple locations across the globe to ferret out and discover the ultimate goals of AIMs (Analog Information Mules)  that are working for ePETRO ran by the notorious Marge Barger and Mike Patrick. In this episode, the two of them have their differences in their willingness to bend international law.  The two of them have habitually and successfully scoffed at international laws skirting them for years. Now they have to play the dangerous but very lucrative game of middle man between Iran and North Korea.  Marge wants to do it, but Mike is hesitant. Who will win out in the very evil dealing with these two rogue nations? Derek Shoales does an excellent job of ratcheting up the tension and pacing with his narrative delivery as the stakes for the protagonists grow ever more dire with Julie going undercover as Jackeline Cooper and starts a job at ePETRO’s London office.  Also, in this series’ episode, particular CATS’ member disappears, alarming the rest of the team. In Panama, Brayson Morris plays a major part in the story and appears to be very disenchanted with his particular situation with CATS. Is it his time to retire or switch sides?  As the various actors of Breakfield and Burkey’s novel take to the stage in the story, their various personalities are embodied in this extraordinary narrator’s protean voice.  Devoted audiobook listeners who judge a novel by the narrator’s delivery will be happy to discover Shoales empathetic characterization enriches the authors’ work.  A narrator’s voice is not merely a delivery system but an integral element to the prose with the ability to fulfill, enrich, injure or sink a book.  The Enigma Dragon: A CATS Tale tackles issues of today that could result in an apocalyptic ending.  Charles V. Breakfield and Roxanne E. Burkey’s work proves to be exhilarating, sharp-edged, and complex. It is a compelling hybrid of the CATS’ saga and a techno-political thriller. Reviewed by: David H

About Charles V. Breakfield & Roxanne E. Burkey

Breakfield writes with his co-author Rox Burkey. Together they write The Enigma Series and multiple short stories in various genres. Charles is a technologist who specializes in network connectivity, security and leading edge technology integrations. Charles' love of wine tastings, cooking, and Harley riding has found ways into the stories. As a child he moved often because of his father's military career, which even now helps him with the various character perspectives he helps bring to life in the series. He continues to try to teach Burkey humor. Burkey works as a business architect who builds solutions for customers on a good technology foundation. She has written many technology papers and white papers but finds the freedom of writing fiction a lot more fun. As a child she helped to lead the kids with exciting new adventures built on make believe characters, was a Girl Scout until high school, and contributed to the community as a young member of a Head Start program. Rox enjoys family, learning, listening to people, travel, outdoor activities, sewing, cooking, and thinking about how to diversify the series. Breakfield and Burkey started writing non-fictional papers and books, but it wasn't nearly as fun as writing fictional stories. They found it interesting to use the aspects of technology that people are incorporating into their daily lives more and more as a perfect way to create a good guy/bad guy story with elements of travel to the various places they have visited, either professionally and personally, humor, romance, intrigue, suspense, and a spirited way to remember people who have crossed paths with them. They love to talk about their stories with private and public book readings. Burkey is also conducting regular radio interviews with other authors, which is interesting. Her first interview was, wait for it, Breakfield. You can often find them at local book fairs or other family oriented events. The original series is based on a family organization called R-Group. Recently Breakfield and Burkey spawned a subgroup that contains some of the original characters as the Cyber Assassins Technology Services (CATS) team. The authors have ideas for continuing the series in both of these tracks. They track the more than 150 characters on a spreadsheet, with a hidden avenue for the future coined The Enigma Chronicles tagged in some portions of the stories. Fan reviews seem to frequently suggest that these would make good television or movie stories, so the possibilities appear endless, just like their ideas for new stories. They have completed book video trailers for each of the stories, which can be viewed on YouTube, Amazon's Authors page, or on their website, www.EnigmaBookSeries.com. Their website is routinely updated with new interviews, answers to readers' questions, book trailers, and contests. You may also find it fascinating to check out the fun acronyms they create for the stories but summarize on their website. Reach out to them at Authors@EnigmaSeries. com, Twitter @EnigmaSeries, or Facebook @TheEnigmaSeries.

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