Cameron Lowe
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Assassins Anonymous
- De: Rob Hart
- Narrado por: Neill Thorne
- Duración: 9 h y 22 m
- Versión completa
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Mark was the most dangerous killer-for-hire in the world. But after learning the hard way that his life’s work made him more monster than man, he left all of that behind, and joined a twelve-step group for reformed killers. When Mark is viciously attacked by an unknown assailant, he is forced on the run. From New York to Singapore to London, he chases after clues while dodging attacks and trying to solve the puzzle of who’s after him. All without killing anyone. Or getting killed himself. For an assassin, Mark learns, nonviolence is a real hassle.
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Awful narration
- De Leanne J. en 09-06-24
- Assassins Anonymous
- De: Rob Hart
- Narrado por: Neill Thorne
Fun story
Revisado: 06-17-25
The tongue-in-cheek nature of Assassins Anonymous is a lot of fun. very reminscent of Brian Asman, which is a hell of a compliment, as both wear their influences on their sleeves and have some laughs at genre standards at the same time.
The narration is the only weak point here. The narrator spends half the novel dripping smarminess from every word and the last half overwrought emotion. It's a lot.
But overall. a truly terrific book
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The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
- De: Stephen King
- Narrado por: Anne Heche
- Duración: 6 h y 29 m
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Anne Heche reads The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, the story of nine-year-old Trisha McFarland who gets lost in the woods while on a walk with her family. Boston Red Sox closing pitcher Tom Gordon becomes Trisha's imaginary companion - and the key to her survival against an unidentified someone (or some thing) leaving death and destruction in its wake.
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Amber Alert
- De Tango en 03-22-15
- The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
- De: Stephen King
- Narrado por: Anne Heche
Terrific novel, audio is dated
Revisado: 02-26-25
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is one of King's most underrated works, a short, terribly lonely effort that somehow feels as claustrophobic as Cujo, even if it takes place in a vast woodlands area. Aside from a nine-year-old who, at times, sounds like a fifty-year-old writing a nine-year-old, it is a fantastic story and well worth a read.
Anne Heche's performance is also really terrific, and my three star of the performance in no way reflects her skills as a narrator. However, the audio quality of the title is muffled and in dire need of either a remaster or a new recording. It would be a shame to lose Hache's performance but the lack of crispness to the sound is a definite detriment.
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Last Night in Montreal
- De: Emily St. John Mandel
- Narrado por: Alyssa Bresnahan
- Duración: 7 h y 30 m
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From the bestselling author of Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility—when Lilia Albert was a child, her father appeared on the doorstep of her mother's house and took her away. Now, haunted by an inability to remember much about her early childhood, Lilia moves restlessly from city to city, abandoning lovers and eluding the private detective who has dedicated a career to following close behind.
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Something reslly different
- De Donna en 03-21-16
- Last Night in Montreal
- De: Emily St. John Mandel
- Narrado por: Alyssa Bresnahan
Falters a bit but still gorgeously written
Revisado: 02-20-25
The first half of Last Night in Montreal is a gorgeously written character study, sad and hopeful all at once. I can't help but think if the story had remained focused on its two leads that it would have been among Mandel's best. But as the story enters its second half, it buckles under the weight of its characters, particularly that of Michaela and her father, who come across as broad plot devices, there to present tragedy in the manner of a pair of blunt hammers. It's so strange to see them juxtaposed to the gorgeously realized Lilia and the lovelorn Eli, who are well-built and representative of Mandel's best writing.
Strange too are certain plot choices. The Montreal sections tend to drag and feel pretty redundant by the end. Reveals near the end feel like they were meant to have a greater amount of weight than they actually carry, and the Icarian theme presented throughout again lacks any sort of real subtlety, especially given the novel's ending. I can't help but feel that the more interesting choice here would have been a more hopeful ending. Not that I feel like every novel should have a happily-ever-after, but it might have made for a more fascinating conclusion for Lilia to have her realize that sometimes, grasping for love - i.e. flying too close to the sun - can be the braver choice.
It's still a terrific novel, and Mandel's language is gorgeous and rich, and it's worth the read for that alone. But the plot, while still generally great, falls just short.
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Relentless
- A Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International Novel, Book 2
- De: Jonathan Maberry
- Narrado por: Ray Porter
- Duración: 18 h y 29 m
- Versión completa
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JOE LEDGER’s world has been torn apart. The people closest to him have been savagely murdered and Ledger is on the hunt for the killers. His already fragile psyche has cracked apart, allowing a dangerous darkness to overwhelm him. His hunt takes him deep into the world of the deadly black market weapons sales, and standing in his way are a new generation of private military contractors.
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So Damned Amazing
- De Tyler Kelley en 07-13-21
- Relentless
- A Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International Novel, Book 2
- De: Jonathan Maberry
- Narrado por: Ray Porter
Fascinating story dragged down by its take on PTSD
Revisado: 08-30-24
This is one of the better Joe Ledger novels in a while. Don't get me wrong there. Plot-wise, villain-wise, this is as strong as the series has been since its early goings. There's a lot more focus on the side characters, which is fantastic, as vinalla wafer stand-in Joe Ledger's perspective is getting a bit stale.
But there are two big strikes against it. First is the narration. Ray Porter does great voices, has great enunciation, and is generally great to listen to, but the more and more inflection he imparts on the things he reads, the works suffer. A great narrator doesn't try to spin the story into his own performance. He conveys the story, drawing out its natural voice. I feel like this is particularly problematic with Relentless, where Porter takes every line and infuses it with so much grandiose over-the-top emotion that it drags the experience down notably. It's a big swing and a miss from an otherwise reliable hitter. Of course, part of that can be pinned on the sometimes hammy-as-Easter-Sunday nature of the Joe Ledger novels and Maberry's writing in general, but this is especially egregious in Relentless.
But my biggest problem with Relentless is the way it turns PTSD into a plot device. There's absolutely nothing wrong with exploring the PTSD a character suffers from tragedy, and given the enemies Ledger goes up against, it's perfectly believable that someone would go after his own in a big way. None of that rankles me. But by turning Ledger's PTSD into a marionette dance by one of his enemies, it cheapens the emotions and gravity of what he's going through and turns it into a blameless, guiltless experience for him that ultimately demeans those deaths. "It's not your fault, you were being controlled" is a slap in the face to PTSD sufferers everywhere. It lessens their horrors and emotions and puts a mustache-twirling spin on it and it feels slimy and gross as a reader.
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Cave 13
- A Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International Novel, Book 3
- De: Jonathan Maberry
- Narrado por: Ray Porter
- Duración: 19 h y 25 m
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After years of searching, a new cave filled with Dead Sea Scrolls is found, and among them are bizarre books of actual magic. Terrorist groups and multinational corporations scramble to acquire these treasures in the hopes that magic is the true WMD of the 21st Century. But everyone who goes near those scrolls goes insane. The fabric of reality is shredding. Is this the result of ancient magic, or is it a new bioweapon that fractures the mind of anyone exposed?
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The rant about masks was necessary?
- De Brad en 09-05-23
- Cave 13
- A Joe Ledger and Rogue Team International Novel, Book 3
- De: Jonathan Maberry
- Narrado por: Ray Porter
A frustrating step back
Revisado: 08-30-24
Joe Ledger is quickly becoming the Lost of the techno-sorta-kinda-sci-fi thriller. For every interesting world-building element introduced to its overarching plot, it becomes clear that there's never going to be any kind of satisfying answers, if there are any answers actually plotted out. You can only tease out that sort of thing for so long before it becomes more of an annoyance than intriguing, or to put it colloquially, "crap or get off the pot." Joe Ledger is well past that expiration point.
The character work in this one just isn't there either. Joe's usual eye-rolling snark is turned up to eleven in one scene in such a way that it becomes grating. That could have been fine - maybe even a plot point, Joe still recovering from his mental issues from the previous book - but it's never addressed. Similarly, Joe's mental state is glossed over in this novel, further dismissing the most fascinating character aspect we've seen of him in four thousand novels and demeaning the tragedies of losing his family and going berserk. It cheapens the last novel, which was already pretty insulting to anyone suffering PTSD by blaming it all (passively) on magic... which Joe also seems to conveniently forget. What a weird thing.
But there are also a lot of high points to this one. The drugs-as-a-threat thing is in danger of being overplayed but it gets surprisingly good traction here, creating a fascinating threat for everyone involved. The action is rock-solid, and the side characters seem less like caricatures than in the last few Ledger novels and more like fleshed-out people. That's good to see, though again, it might be too little, too late.
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Broken Souls
- Eric Carter, Book 2
- De: Stephen Blackmoore
- Narrado por: Rudy Sanda
- Duración: 7 h y 46 m
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Sister murdered, best friend dead, married to the patron saint of death, Santa Muerte. Necromancer Eric Carter's return to Los Angeles hasn't gone well, and it's about to get even worse. His link to the Aztec death goddess is changing his powers, changing him, and he's not sure how far it will go. He's starting to question his own sanity, wonder if he's losing his mind. No mean feat for a guy who talks to the dead on a regular basis.
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Unsympathetic Urban Fantasy
- De Douglas Sundseth en 07-06-25
- Broken Souls
- Eric Carter, Book 2
- De: Stephen Blackmoore
- Narrado por: Rudy Sanda
Good story up until...
Revisado: 02-28-24
A frustrating novel. Up to a certain point, it's an exciting story about a supernatural pair of stalkers with terrific action and great characters. But the protagonist spends a great deal of the novel trying to escape a deal with a supernatural creature only to make another obviously bad deal with a different supernatural creature? It feels like an unnecessarily stupid character decision that goes against the entire plot of the novel. Having characters make bad decisions simply to set up plot is one of my least favorite tropes, and here it's pretty eyerolling.
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She Rides Shotgun
- A Novel
- De: Jordan Harper
- Narrado por: David Marantz
- Duración: 6 h y 14 m
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Eleven-year-old Polly McClusky is shy, too old for the teddy bear she carries with her everywhere, when she is unexpectedly reunited with her father, Nate, fresh out of jail and driving a stolen car. He takes her from the front of her school into a world of robbery, violence, and the constant threat of death. And he does it to save her life. Nate made dangerous enemies in prison - a gang called Aryan Steel has put out a bounty on his head, counting on its members on the outside to finish him off.
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Loved this book
- De Andy Ruiz en 02-21-18
- She Rides Shotgun
- A Novel
- De: Jordan Harper
- Narrado por: David Marantz
Intense!
Revisado: 02-28-24
Hard-hitting and never excessive. Also the best stuffed bear in modern literature. Five out of five stars for that alone but he story and narration warrant the five stars too.
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The Elephant of Surprise
- A Hap and Leonard Novel
- De: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrado por: Christopher Ryan Grant
- Duración: 4 h y 47 m
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Hap and Leonard are an unlikely pair - Hap, a self-proclaimed white-trash rebel - and Leonard - a tough-as-nails black, gay Vietnam vet and Republican - but they're the closest friend either of them has in the world. After years of crime-solving companionship, something's changed: Hap, recently married to their PI boss, Brett, is now a family man. Amid the worst flood East Texas has seen in years, the two run across a woman who's had her tongue nearly cut out, pursued by a heavily armed pair of goons. Turns out the girl survived a mob hit, and the boss has come to clean up the mess.
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Hap and Leonard at it again.
- De Tod M. Clark en 03-20-19
- The Elephant of Surprise
- A Hap and Leonard Novel
- De: Joe R. Lansdale
- Narrado por: Christopher Ryan Grant
Great story, stilted narration
Revisado: 04-01-23
The book itself is fantastic, with lots of action and the usual banter and introspection that makes the series great. But the narration for this one is lifeless and the cadence feels almost off-putting. It's like someone reading something they really don't want to for a class project.
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Strip Tease
- De: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrado por: George Wilson
- Duración: 15 h y 12 m
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No matter what you heard or thought about the movie version of Strip Tease, forget it. Film simply can’t catch the layers of humor, satire, and imagination that Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Hiaasen creates in each of his novels.
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Hilarious drama
- De Pam W en 11-14-13
- Strip Tease
- De: Carl Hiaasen
- Narrado por: George Wilson
Great start
Revisado: 10-02-22
The first two-thirds are funny and entertaining, but the great cast of characters is mostly wasted on a meandering conclusion that left me ready for the book to end. But pretty solid overall.
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Deep Freeze
- Virgil Flowers, Book 10
- De: John Sandford
- Narrado por: Eric Conger
- Duración: 10 h y 2 m
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Virgil knows the town of Trippton, Minnesota, a little too well. A few years back, he investigated the corrupt - and, as it turned out, homicidal - local school board, and now the town's back in view with more alarming news: A woman's been found dead, frozen in a block of ice. There's a possibility that it might be connected to a high school class of 20 years ago that has a midwinter reunion coming up, and so, wrapping his coat a little tighter, Virgil begins to dig into 20 years' worth of traumas, feuds, and bad blood.
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Virgil gets the s*** beat out of him...
- De shelley en 10-21-17
- Deep Freeze
- Virgil Flowers, Book 10
- De: John Sandford
- Narrado por: Eric Conger
Terrific
Revisado: 09-20-22
Fun, fast paced, and a return to one of Sandford's best settings. Great performance too, as always.
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