Anónimo

"Kane" revisited as an Audiobook

Revisado: 08-19-15

Just over 3 years ago I read and enjoyed Kane, #2 in Steve Gannon's superb series that combines a great crime/police thriller with an extremely emotional family saga. My review rated it highly as a very powerful, exciting and challenging page-turning novel, which is both spine chilling and personally emotional.

I was given the opportunity by the author to revisit the story now that it is available as an audiobook. With the closer immersion in the story through listening instead of reading the book my rating is now probably even higher.

My only reservation is that the narration could have been better. At the beginning the narrator's slow delivery made it difficult for me to fully connect with the story. As an Aussie I also has problems with his unfamiliar drawling accent. I nearly gave up but then I had a brainwave and adjusted the replay speed to 1.25% and without noticeable distortion the drawling accent and slow delivery disappeared, the narration came to life and gave the book the thrust and drive it needed to become a real page turner. After that I took every chance to find time to listen to the book.

Revisiting the book in audio format reminded me of Steve Gannon's undoubted talent in being able to combine a thriller with a great and very emotional family saga. Once again I warn the reader/listener that this is very much an adult novel with vivid scenes of sadistic serial murders but they are needed because they are central to the story.

Music is always a key emotional factor in the Kane books. In this one there is an extremely emotional scene where Kane's wife Catherine is the soloist in Dvorak's Cello Concerto. It would have been great if the audio version could have played some of the music in the background.

The Audiobook version of this book was made available to me by the author.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

An unusual but gripping story by Adrian McKinty

Revisado: 05-17-15

I normally expect Adrian McKinty's stories to be thrillers set in Northern Ireland and was surprised to find that this story was set in German New Guinea, near modern-day Rabaul, in the early 1900's. It featured a strange cult group of mostly German nudist sun worshipers. To make it even stranger they only ate coconuts and bananas (because they grew at the top of trees so were closer to the sun) and sunbathed their days away in a stupor after drinking a cocktail of coconut milk and powdered heroin at breakfast.

Will Prior, a former British military policeman, has retired to German New Guinea after a traumatic incident keeping control of a South African concentration camp. His new found tranquility is disturbed when the German authorities recruit him to investigate the death of one of the cult members, Max Lutzow, on the remote island of Kabakon. The cult members insist that he died from malaria but an autopsy suggests that the death was from other causes.

Prior, a German officer and a middle-aged single Englishwoman, visit the island to investigate. They are immediately thrust into the middle of the cult's day-to-day life and diet (including the coconut cocktail), meeting with constant denials of any wrongdoing in Lutzow's death. Eventually when Prior starts to flush out the truth things get pretty tense.

This was the first audio book that I have listened to and I enjoyed the experience during my morning walks and car journeys. If I had read the book I think that I might have given up because it was not what I expected from McKinty. The narrator, Gerald Doyle, did a great job in turning what could have been a fairly unexciting story into something pretty absorbing.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña