Michael

Although Kellerman has always been one of my favorite authors I have been disillusioned and disappointed with his last few offerings. Some of them such as True Detectives I just skipped all together. When Victims was released I decided to give it a try and I am glad I did. IMHO probably one of his best, if not the best. It is classic Kellerman in the same vein as my favorites like Bones, Evidence and The Murder Book.

While it was sometimes a bit predictable, Kellerman kept the suspense on the edge ending each chapter leaving you wanting more. I went through this book in just a few days because I just couldn't stop myself. I haven't done this with a Kellerman book in a long time.

Rubinstein brings Alex and Milo to life as usual and I can't imagine anyone else doing them justice. The older Alex Delaware novels before he took over the duties just weren't the same.

Welcome back Alex and Milo!! I hope Kellerman keeps up this level of writing.

I will start by saying that I have never been a big fan of author who take a well developed character and write what can basically be considered a prequel. Mitch Rapp is one of my favorite characters and I will admit that I fully expected to be totally underwhelmed and disappointed with Kill Shot. I thought I already knew who Rapp was and really wanted a continuation of Pursuit of Honor but it is actually more of a continuation of American Assassin.

Kill Shot, although the 12 book about Rapp, like American Assassin it actually takes place before Transfer of Power. It is good background on Rapp getting to know what made him the cold killer that we see later in the series chronologically.

Guidall is great as usual and truly is the voice of Rapp the way I imagine it in my head.

I was not underwhelmed nor disappointed as expected and must say that I really enjoyed Kill Shot but I am ready for Flynn to bring Rapp back to the 21st century.

Honestly it took me several months to make my way through this one. It was very slow in the beginning with lot sub-plots that are seemingly unrelated. Many of them have no obvious connection to the main story line until the second book. Initially I would get bored and head to another book before coming back to this one. Once things started coming together it grabbed my interest and and I easily stayed with it to the end and really enjoyed it and moved straight into the second book ready to see what happened next.

John Lee's performance on this one didn't help me stay with it in the beginning and really made all of the sub-plot direction changes even harder to follow. It certainly wasn't what I have come to expect from one of my favorite narrators. He was fantastic in Pillars of the Earth, World Without End and Count of Montecristo but here he was just confusing. He didn't change his voice characterizations enough and he would move from one section to the next without a pause or a breath making really difficult to know when he changed the storyline. The only way I would sometimes know that he had moved on was a feeling of confusion where I felt that I had missed something. Once the sub-plots started coming together it got easier to follow but I would still prefer at least a few second pause between sections.

Well I can say that this is better than the last few Van Lustbader offerings in the Bourne series. At least he has gotten rid of the silly magic/supernatural aspect of the last few novels. Even so the story is over complicated, sometimes hard to follow and other times way too predictable. Certainly not worthy of the spirit of the the first 3 books by Ludlam himself.

I will have to agree that this is not Forsyth's best effort. Although I very much enjoy a book that lays the background for the plot I felt that he went just a bit too far and it bordered on boring. If you can make it through part one things will pick up. It ended up being a difficult listen for me. It took me much longer to get through The Afghan at just over 10 hrs than it did to get the 40+ hr "The Company" by Robert Littell. Save this one for a credit that you need to burn and have nothing else that captures your attention.