Rico X Ludovici

Too many McGuffins

Revisado: 03-09-25

Maybe four, possibly five make it confusing. Some are things, some are ideas, some are people. For that, however, the atmospherics are pure Nick Caron and the (maybe pointless) action rolls right along.

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The Guy Can't Stop

Revisado: 02-07-24

.... writing, I mean. I think he always has two or three chapters too many at the end of the every book. And they tend to get a little mawkish as he makes sure to drive home the points he has already stuck in you for the last how many chapters. Clint Eastwood told Sergio Leone that a B film tells the viewer every stinking thing. An A film doesn't answer most of the questions. I always look for that but Silva can't let it go.

He has a great imagination and I am always amazed how much more drama Silva can squeeze out of a retired espionage agent. Good story; nice flow; believable characters. Gimme a break on the politics.

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Sounds like you are there.

Revisado: 09-05-22

The reader has a South African accent, so you get the real flavor. Others have faulted the frequent references to the state capture aspect. However, it is essential to the notion of a otherwise stable if floridly unfair society committing slow suicide.

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... With Teutonic Thoroughness

Revisado: 11-09-19

I tried to **read** this book but it was like driving a boat: once you take your hand off the throttle, it soon bogs down. Better to listen to the book so you keep going when it is time for a trip to the fridge or across the room.

Kemper is much to be praised for prizing out all the nuggets of human experience from Barth's voluminous account of these six years in Saharan Africa. However, it is a rolling account of endless skirmishes, feuds, and outlawry by the indigenous tribes of the area. That Barth remained alive though all this is quite remarkable and his observations of the geography and the flora are quite surprising. They put the lie to the notion that the Sahara is all sandy desert.The final chapter does great justice to his efforts and is more than honest about Barth's nettlesome personality.

However, the reading is similarly nettlesome. I don't know why the producers of these books don't find someone to chase down the CORRECT pronunciation of not just the foreign words, but also the larger English words. The narrator's voice is quite compelling. His sonority is a major plus, but his inability to say 'consul' [i.e. 'council' when 'consul' is clearly meant] takes a great deal of luster off his efforts.

If you are interested in the Sahara, in historical travel, or in the quirky sort of scientist who thrives in a hostile field, you will probably enjoy this book. Listen to it; don't read it. It's like a 1000 mile caravan of facts on a slow pack animal.

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Awesome prequel.

Revisado: 10-02-19

I wonder how long all this had been rattling around in the author's head before he put it down. Equal parts "M", "Metropolis", and "Maltese Falcon."

It shows just how far Bernie Gunther - the fallen angel - had fallen. If you followed the whole series with the long flashback scenes, this will put it all together. And I wonder if Kerr had some intimations of mortality as he was writing this opus. It is a stellar final installment.

One of the reviewers of German Requiem complained of too much rumination and not enough action. Kerr spent the best part of a decade reading German law and filling it in with cultural research. That homework shines through in this book. However, the German Requiem is the author coming to terms with a culture on which he fed deeply and finally weighed on the moral scales. This book sets up the weights to place in the scale.

Not rock'em;sock'em. More wonder and wander. And absolutely true to Berlin then as well as now. Not a pretty little town.

[I would have given five stars to the story if there had been more rock'em;sock'em. As for the narration, WHY oh WHY do the producers and/or the readers not research the pronunciation of foreign or unfamiliar words? This are the small logs in an otherwise smooth road of narration.]

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GG has two classics; this isn't one.

Revisado: 09-09-19

In fact it is dry, choppy, and boring.

Greene is only masterful when he is hating Americans: The Quiet American and Our Man in Havana.

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The sound of rollerskating in sand

Revisado: 02-06-19

It got a real good review in the Wall Street Journal so I bought it. Now I can only listen to about 15 or 20 minutes at a time. This reader sounds like James Earl Jones on qualudes.

I am still really interested in this biography but - DUDE!!! - speed up the delivery. Not EVERY sentence is sententious.

Given the importance of the topic, the size of the book, and the prestige of the publisher, Audible could have gotten Samuel L. Jackson or Wesley Snipes or who ever. Someone to give it some LIFE!

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Do your homework

Revisado: 06-19-18

The narrator of this book is strictly community theater level talent. Even a small town radio station has to have better copy readers than this guy. The reading is often stilted and over pronounced: "... gave way to **aay** small opening..." Too much vocal indicating - giving arch emphasis where it is NOT NEEDed. Like that. And the mispronunciations of words that a reasonably educated person would know. Spend more money on a better reader and a more competent producer. PUH-leeze. Look up the hard words.

The story is vintage John Douglas. Interesting, thought provoking, difficult to read through. I thought he should tell us where to skip over the crime part and jump into the mind part. But they are both necessary to the story.

I'm left with one little question: what does John Douglas get out of immersing himself in all this depravity? ... for decades?

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Can't get them right - the good parts

Revisado: 04-11-18

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The book is fine, although it is an expanded version of an excellent ARTICLE Twain first wrote for the Atlantic magazine. Thus, the padding is somewhat superfluous, albeit with interesting turns of phrase thrown in.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Mark Twain. Because.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

I wonder if the recording had a producer/director who knew anything about the river or French names in the US. The narrator mangles several English words and practically every French name or term he reaches. Not just prood-HOMMY for 'Prudhomme, he also says **Lag-NAPPY** for 'lagniappe'? He does this with such glib confidence that I have to think he actually is proud of his community college AA. Furthermore, his slightly husky, self-satisfied intellectual tone would make you want to abandon the snack table if you met him at an amateur theater cast party.

Could you see Life on the Mississippi being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

With this narrator as a model, Fraser's younger brother.

Any additional comments?

If you like the smell of a high school English teacher's breath after a smoke and a cup of coffee in the teachers' lounge as he talks over your shoulder while you are taking a quiz, this is the performance for you.

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