Randolph

Well done but depressing

Revisado: 08-08-22

I live the Samson series, one of my favorite fiction characters of all time. That being said this book doesn’t really stand completely on its own. If you picked it up without reading the prior books you’d be lost, but if you’re deciding whether to read this or not you most definitely should, but only after going through the first six in order. The characters are spectacularly well developed and you’d be doing yourself an injustice to not get their full stories as told through the earlier books. Spoiler here so maybe stop - I say it’s depressing only because Bernard Samson’s life does not go how I’d like it to go, and not as well as he deserves given his loyalty and personality traits. Good guys often don’t win so I guess it’s realistic.

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A little too dramatized.

Revisado: 01-14-20

Don’t like the switching back and forth of the narrators. Also find Lakin a poor voice actor, unconvincing and flat, especially with the male voices. I especially dislike it when both voices are in the same scene. It’s disruptive somehow. I still love Bosch and welliver is a terrific voice for him. Get rid of Ballard she’s dead weight.

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Poor imitation of Bosch

Revisado: 03-31-18

Like a second rate and poorly narrated female version of Bosch. I couldn’t finish the book. And I live damn near everything from Connelly.

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Best LeCarre in a while

Revisado: 10-05-17

Perhaps it's the story, or perhaps it's Tom Hollander's masterfully tense narration, but this book had me craving the next line continually throughout. I was legitimately sad when it was over. Must read.

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So bad I gave up on listening

Revisado: 09-18-17

Rarely is the performance so bad and the story line so thin that I give up on a book after just a few chapters. Yet that is what I did with this book. While I have nothing against female narrators, I have a problem with any narrator who has only two voices - the natural voice and the phony voice. This narrator has no ability to vary her tone, accent, or timber in order to convey different characters. It doesn't help that every character in the book was male and she has but one male voice - and it sounds terribly phony.

I have more important things to do with my time, or better things to listen to, than to suffer through nearly 9 hours of bad narration and poor story telling. I used to love Grisham and read all his early works. It's the first Grisham novel I've tried in a while, and it might be my last.

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This series ends for me before it begins

Revisado: 10-04-16

I loved the Jack Reacher movie, but this book was terrible. The story moves at a snail's pace. The narrator sounds to be about 70, incapable of conveying the voice of a young man in his thirties. I'm curious how the story ends as I couldn't finish it. Just too slow and actually was making me bored as I listened in my car. The supposedly crack investigator on the local police force misses every obvious clue, and the female cop is a caricature of a cop and every woman should be outraged, at least as far as how she's portrayed for the first half of the book - mousy voice, incapable of any real investigation of her own after the initial chapters. So many cliches overall I lost count, and when you pair that with the boring pace, I'm done. Can't imagine trying another one of these as long as the same narrator is on the case. Maybe if I get it free at the library...

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Welliver is more than low key, he's just flat

Revisado: 04-19-16

I write this as a long time fan of Connelly and Bosch. While not his best work, the story line is ok, but the performance drags the whole thing down. Welliver, who plays Bosch well on video, can't pull off his moods using the monotone voice that he applies to Bosch throughout this story. Bosch has always been unflappable, but he does have emotions that do run high, yet that is not how Welliver plays him. On video, Welliver can use facial clues and body language to tell us who Bosch is, but on audio those don't work obviously yet welliver reads the role as if we can see him reading the lines. I expected Welliver to read this role with a new verve compared to the prior narrators, a younger and more energetic version, but instead its the opposite. In the end, Welliver's Bosch is like a pendulum that never strays far from center, leaving me feeling as if he was really trying to put a new spin on the Bosch that we've come to know through all the prior novels.

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Great story, worthless performance

Revisado: 05-20-12

Buck Schirner is the worst audiobook narrator I have ever listened to. He appears to have been miscast, first of all - don't know how old he is, but his voice sounds at least 50 and tired and the main character is in his 30s. It was very difficult to envision the relationships and the romance listening to that voice. Worse though was the thoroughly wooden and mechanical reading of the script. It really did sound like he was reading and didn't sound natural at all, like enunciating ev-er-y sin-gle wor-dd was more important than the emotion or the story. I've never heard anyone speak in real life like this guy sounded on the audiobook. If I wasn't a Michael Connelly fan and had not read the book in paperback years ago, I probably would have stopped listening in the first 10 minutes. It was that bad. It's a shame, since this was a famous book and could be the first intro to Connelly for a lot of listeners. Skip this book. What's odd is that the narration of the Harry Bosch series done by Len Cariou has always seemed stiff to me (though way better than Schirner). Does Connelly think this kind of reading is what the fans want? Not this fan.

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Different

Revisado: 04-11-12

The weaving into the story of a historical connection made this book. Without it, I don't think I would have liked it as much or cared as much about the protagonist. It provided a depth of character that by itself is not unusual, but the means of doing so was very original. This is my third book from Littell, and while it's my least favorite of the three, its still a very enjoyable "read". I'm starting to think I'd like anything from Littell.

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Different

Revisado: 04-11-12

The weaving into the story of a historical connection made this book. Without it, I don't think I would have liked it as much or cared as much about the protagonist. It provided a depth of character that by itself is not unusual, but the means of doing so was very original. This is my third book from Littell, and while it's my least favorite of the three, its still a very enjoyable "read". I'm starting to think I'd like anything from Littell.

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