cristina

I have actually enjoyed some of Brad Meltzer's ridiculous rides before (I listen for entertainment). This was not one of those. When the Culpa Ring "story" (a "secret club" riddled with such incompetent members that it would be amazing to think they could have survived a month, needless to say a century) degenerated into "the real name of Jesus" I KNEW I had to stop listening (I have to admit that I was tempted to drop the audiobook way before). The storyline is ridiculous. I really couldn't care less what happens to ANY of the characters in this story. A bunch of self-centered idiots bound by a bunch of ludicrous coincidences.

Downloaded this immediately after having finished the first in the series. I really liked The Sign of the Cross, but found this installment lacking. First of all, the premise seems a bit implausible -- a man's sons are unnerved by his reaction to an obituary and immediately conclude it hides a death threat, launching into an investigation on their own. If their father's past is as mild as they have thought all along, doesn't the panic seem a bit of a stretch? Secondly, if the man himself knows all the "secrets," but refuses to discuss said secrets with his sons (telling the family to forget it), why would they insist of pursuing the search? (They are basically trying to discover things that their father already knows.) So that's my problem with the plot.

A secondary problem, with the characters themselves, is the womanizing priest...and everyone else's acceptance of this priest's 'character flaw,' even encouraging it. Regardless of your views on Catholic priests and their celibacy vow, it seems a little weird that practically all the characters (most of them Irish Catholics for whom the Church is a key part of their lives) treat this priest's frequent 'pecadillos' as somewhat amusing.

That said, the writing is good. I will probably give the series a third try.

I was very surprised with how enjoyable this little mystery was. I had never heard of the author or the series. Read it based on the reviews of two Audible readers I follow. Well, thank you! I just finished it and already downloaded the second in the series!

Monty Collins is a sharp tongued lawyer with an estranged wife who has an even sharper tongue. They defend a priest accused of murder and for a while neither you nor his attorney are quite sure whether Father Burke is guilty or not. The character development is very good, making even the mystery secondary to the players. But the mystery is quite good. You are given enough of the pieces to solve it -- and Anne Emery wraps the whole thing very nicely, making it just surprising enough.

Have a bit of patience at the beginning. There are phrases to the effect of "little did I know how wrong I was," or "I would come to regret those words soon enough" (not direct quotes, but this kind of unnecessary foreboding) a tad too often. However, once the story gets going, Ms. Emery's writing seems to get better as well. I had a hard time putting it down towards the end.

I thought Christian Rummel's narration was great. Yes, some of the Irish priests were a bit much -- but what could he do? They are meant to have Irish accents and he had to separate them from each other, so some do go a bit over the top. He made up for that minor fault with everything else -- even managing to make Monty's wife sound sharp tongued but likable (something that I have found is often hard for male narrators reading a woman's voice).

Like I said, I've already downloaded the second in the series (I am so happy when I find a new author who has a SERIES out already!). It's a testament to the character development that I am looking forward to finding out what happens to THEM as much as to the next mystery!

This is my second Goddard, which is a good thing because otherwise I might have dropped it too soon. The truth is that I thought the historical background dragged down the first half of the book. I found it boring at times. The solution to the memoir's mystery seemed almost obvious -- certainly not enough of an enigma so as to justify the characters' intense interest in solving it! Still, having read another Goddard, I knew there had to be more to the story -- and there was! A lot more! The way in which the main character in the present (a very flawed, failed historian) and the main character in the memoir (a failed politician) seem to lead parallel lives...and the ways in which those two characters are also extremely different, is at the center of a spiraling tale of deceit and consequences. Loved the second half of the book; thought the first half was wanting...ergo the three stars.

As others have pointed out, this is not the last in the series. Since I had not liked the last one -- Phantom -- I was happy to have my faith in Nesbo restored with this earlier installment. Once again, we are following Hole's ingenious (but perfectly sensible) thought process as he unravels the mystery: A man is murdered and, as Harry tracks the killer, the killer appears to be tracking a new victim -- or is he? As usual in Nesbo novels, the clues are often psychological. The root of the evil is in the past. There is no black and white. And the pieces come together nicely. Hole solves the puzzle of course, but not without some suffering of his own in the process. Part of the lure of this series is the vulnerability of the main character, so we are not surprised.

I loved this book from beginning to end. The narration was perfect, except for one section where, for some reason, Navid Negahban’s accent seemed to get strong enough to be distracting. That said, I could not imagine listening to the book without these voices. Shohreh Aghdashloo’s musky tones are particularly mesmerizing and I was glad it ended with her.

The story—about family; about duty; about losses and loves that “echo” forever; about bonds broken, sometimes irrevocably and sometimes not—starts in the fifties and follows the characters until the present, except “follows” is the wrong word since this tale is not told chronologically. You are with one character, leave him or her to go visit another, rediscover that person again at another time and place and get glimpses of what has transpired while you were away. Back and forth until the story comes to a close about which I can’t really say much without spoiling it. Suffice it to say that Hosseini pulls a forgotten memento out of his pocket and makes the moment magical. You gasp, in awe.

The language is lyrical. The emotions are true and poignant. At one point, I was listening while driving and broke down in tears (pretty embarrassing since it was in broad daylight). At another, I felt compelled to stop reading and call my mother who lives in another state just to say hello in the middle of the day. Hosseini reminds you how easy it is to lose the thread that binds us. To take care.

I hope it doesn’t take him six years to write another gem.

A very entertaining mystery about a family with a very complicated past. When a stranger appears in town claiming to be the long-presumed-dead son, everyone takes sides either believing him or claiming he is an impostor. Is he, or isn't he, you wonder...and wonder. Every character has his or her own agenda when pursuing the answer, allowing Mr. Goddard to feed you bits and pieces of the puzzle from various directions. You think you have figured it out, only to be confounded time and time again by the next revelation.

There are times when the scenes could have used some editing, and there are one or two instances when the characters' actions seem a bit of a stretch. However, my interest never waned.

This was my first Goddard mystery, but I have already downloaded a second.

Mr. Kitchen's performance, as other reviewers have mentioned, is top notch.

I loved this book.The only reason I took one star away from the "story" is because I saw the ending coming a little earlier than I would have liked. That said, everything else was fantastic. The character development. The plot. The twists and turns as the two attorneys keep uncovering more and more lies their client has told. And the PERFORMANCE! Mr. Collins does an absolutely phenomenal job with each and every line, each and every voice, bringing the story to life almost like if you were watching it happen.

I really liked Mr. Mitzner's first book. This one is even better. As I said in my review for his first, I hope he writes fast!

OK, the novel probably does not deserve five stars -- there are a few too many serendipitous encounters and Patrick is way too lucky even for a fictional hero. Still, I loved it. I literally could not stop listening. When other things got in the way -- like work!!! -- I could not wait to get back to it.

I am a sucker for werewolf and vampire stories (this one is just the former), but this novel is about more. There are quite obvious parallels to current political and religious themes (there are the "good" werewolves and the "terrorist" werewolves, setting up bombs, etc. There is the occupied werewolf country that the U.S. needs for its uranium mines...)...But, as Mr. Percy seems to want us to understand, we should not be too quick to judge. There's very good and very bad -- and everything in between -- on both sides. Even among the terrorists who are setting up the bombs, there are some "good" people (a hard thing for me to swallow since I live in Boston and the Marathon bombings happened just a month ago). Still, Mr. Percy has enough talent to make you see "the other side."

He is a very GOOD writer -- nothing like a well-written horror yarn!

The plot gripped me from the start -- and it does not let up. Even with the serendipitous occurrences that I mentioned before, it is a nicely woven story. I was afraid that the ending would let me down -- how can this END? -- but it did not. In fact, I thought the ending was perfect...and I cannot say anything more without spoiling it.

At first, Mr. Percy's reading is a tad hard to get used to. Then it becomes one of the things you absolutely love. (I am not sure if I would have felt the same if he had not been the author...I probably would have thought that he was reading too much 'drama' into some of the scenes. But, since he was the author, clearly the drama was meant to be there.) In fact, I looked at the other novel he has in Audible and was disappointed that he was not the narrator.

I highly recommend Red Moon. Well done. Mr. Percy, well done!

I enjoyed the previous two books and was disappointed with this third installment. Unlike some of the other reviewers, however, my disappointment was not with the abrupt ending. It was with the novel itself. The story 'reads' like a plot outline -- with absolutely no character development whatsoever even by Jeffrey Archer's standards. So Character A, for example, will go from being a difficult child to a model adolescent with absolutely no explanation as to what brought the change about. Character B, besotted with his wife and willing to forsake all else at her request, is able to move on from his infatuation at the drop of a dime. Of course, the infatuation seems absurd from the start since Character C, the wife, is a cartoonish Cruella Deville without a single redeeming quality -- and the fact that Character B fell madly in love with her seems, well, out of character. In this novel, the characters are all lowercase and act however they have to at that moment in order to move The Plot along. And, believe me, The Plot moves...at dizzying speed and in all kinds of preposterous directions. It's almost like if Archer is thinking of what will happen next as he types! In fact, I am not even sure what "the Best Kept Secret" was meant to be since the story line regarding what I THOUGHT was "the secret" does not get resolved. In fact, it is not even mentioned in the last 50 or more pages of The Plot. (Could it be that the audible production did leave a section out?) If you are a Jeffrey Archer fan, by all means, download it. It's not deep, but it is kind-of entertaining. I am sure I will buy the next one.

I do not consider myself squeamish. I absolutely loved "Gone Girl" and all of that author's books. I am watching "The Following" on TV (where at least one person dies a horrific and very graphic death in every show). Still, there was something very disturbing about this novel. When it got to a blow-by-blow (so to speak) description of a sex phone call (definitely you would not think that would/could have been as 'violent' as some things I've read, watched or listened to), I realized my entire body was cringing. I read for entertainment -- and I was not being entertained. I was being tortured. It almost felt as if the author was enjoying it as much as the 'bad' characters in the book. Too realistic? (Too sadistic?) Maybe. "Well" written, but not for me. Definitely not entertaining.