Last Survivor by Tony Park

Last Survivor (Sonja Kurtz #4) by Tony Park

Release: June 30th, 2020
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Macmillan Australia
Source: Damppebbles Tours
Find it at Goodreads, Amazon UK, Amazon US.

Only a bunch of heavily armed gardeners can save the world’s most valuable plant.

A priceless plant, a rare African cycad thought to be extinct and prized by collectors, has been discovered, then stolen.
Joanne Flack, widowed and broke, is the prime suspect for the crime. While supposedly hiding out in London, she single-handedly foils a terrorist plot, killing a lone-wolf gunman.
The former mercenary turned CIA contractor Sonja Kurtz uncovers a link between the missing plant and the terrorist who tried to kill Joanne. The US Government thinks that if it can find the missing cycad, it can foil an attack to rival 9-11.

Hot on Joanne’s trail is retired US Fisheries and Wildlife Department special agent, Rod Cavanagh, who knows his plants and knows his target – he’s her former lover.
Joanne is a member of the Pretoria Cycad and Firearms Appreciation Society. She, Sonja, and Rod enlist the help of this group of aging gardeners and gun nuts to find a plant worth a fortune and the traitor in their midst who is willing to kill for it.

About the Author:

Tony Park was born in 1964 and grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney. He has worked as a newspaper reporter in Australia and the UK, a press secretary, a PR consultant, and a freelance writer. He also served 34 years in the Australian Army Reserve, including six months in Afghanistan in 2002. Tony and his wife, Nicola, divide their time equally between Australia and southern Africa. He is the author of eighteen thriller novels set in Africa, with more on the way. His latest novel, Last Survivor, was the number one bestselling adult fiction title in South Africa.

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Last Survivor Review:

Firstly, I loved how the author sets the story in South Africa. I hardly read any books set in the African subcontinent; hence, the setting sparked my interest. Moreover, the author has experienced the country’s life because of the detailed visuals he provides. Secondly, I enjoyed how the central plot revolves around plants, smuggling, and terrorism. It is packed with excitement and adventure.

Even though I have not read the previous books in the series, I had no trouble reading this as a standalone. Sonja makes a very nice lead. She is brave, adventurous, and has a no-nonsense attitude. She fills the pages with high adrenaline action with plots around smugglers, terrorists, illegal traders. Honestly, the author writes the story compellingly.

However, at times it felt as though there was too much information. The author includes many names and places in the storyline, some of which I felt hard to follow. Also, I thought we did not need a romance angle to the story, as it didn’t add much value to the plot.

Apart from that, I thought this was a fun and exciting book to read. It is one of those books which I feel would make a fantastic movie adaptation. Reading this book perked my curiosity to pick up the first book in the series to see how it all started.