Christopher

This is one of my favorite books. Hannibal Lecter is one of the classiest characters I've run across. This book takes you into the parts of his mind that make him brilliant. The book is not all about him but it is great reading. This is not a horror book. Silence of the Lambs was much more visually disturbing. This is more of a Suspense book. It can also be read independently of the others.

It says that this is an unabridged book but it is not. It is missing the last few chapters and in my opinion, the most important ones. They just ended a chapter and spiced in "This... is Audible". Either the recording needs to be revisited so that it can be presented in it's entirety or it should be marked "Abridged".

All that being said, this is an excellent book and I found excuses to spend extra time with it.

I think I may have sprained something in my head rolling my eyes at the politics in this book. This is no comment on whether or not I agree with him, he just overdoes it... a lot.

The story has many of the elements of a good Clancy read but somehow doesn't capture his ability to tell a story. I just finished The Cardinal of the Kremlin which I'd read years ago and it renewed my love of a great Tom Clancy book. The Jack Ryan meme is getting a little far fetched at this point too. Good story, not great. I'd recommend it but with the suggestion that if you come in to this book with low expectations it will probably be an easier listen.

I usually avoid listening to Stephen King because he is a true master of the craft and can put things in my head that I'd rather not have in there. Sometimes though he writes something that is not horror and when he does, it is brilliant. If all you know of The Green Mile is from the movie, which is excellent, you are missing a layer of story. As so many books do, it captures things that the movie just couldn't include. By chance I watched the movie a little while after I finished the book and got things that I'd have missed otherwise.

Stephen King can write some seriously disturbing stuff. None of that is in this book. He focused energies in a totally different direction. Go get this book!

I'm so happy that they decided to do a decent audio book of The Hobbit and The Trilogy. Everything that was out was a dramatization and not up to snuff. I've physically read these books... well, I have no idea anymore how many times I've read it since childhood... Let's just say many times. Listening to it this time has been a new experience. I've gotten a lot out of it that I missed before.

I think part of the challenge has been to find someone with the fortitude to tackle the songs and languages that Tolkien created. Rob Inglis is certainly up to the task. He's great!

This series would be great for people who are not familiar with the books. For the people who are familiar with it, this will add a dimension to your understanding of it.

I'm sure, (in the way that someone who has never met or spoken with the author can be sure) that J.K. Rowling was trying to write a book that was as far from Harry Potter as she could get. She had to show that she could do something else. She has certainly succeeded. I don't think that this was supposed to be a light hearted romp at all. It is not. This book is dark and brooding. If you are waiting for the uplifting moment, it never comes. The other side of that is that she wrote this book very well. Part of what makes it dark and disturbing is that she is good at description and she is excellent and setting a scene in small towns in England. I didn't really like the book but I was engaged with it to the end.

The reader knocked this one out of the park! I think that part of what made the book so engaging was that he was reading it. I hope this book lands him a big stack of contracts to perform other books. He needs to do more!

I didn't like the story but it was well crafted.

I would be really interested in another book by Joe Navarro but I'll avoid Paul Costanzo like the plague. His narration is that bad. This is the second book in my life that I have not been able to finish because of the reader, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy being the first.

I really wanted to like this. The material is very interesting and well written. The reading of it was atrocious. That being said, I think that with some coaching, he could be a good reader. He has a good voice for audiobooks but it sounds like he is trying too hard to read clearly and it just comes out chopped up.

Paul Castonzo reads. As if. The sentences in the book. Are broken up into. Lots of smaller sentences.

It is the auditory equivalent of watching a teenager learn to drive a stick shift.

If the reader doesn't bother you, then I'd highly suggest this book. If you are even a little sensitive to a bad reader, then skip it.

As most of us did, I went into this looking for my next Tom Clancy fix. At first I was sorely disappointed. It is not Tom Clancy at all. He may have had something to do with the production of the book but it was never him. After 4 or 5 hours something changed for me and I stopped thinking about it as a Clancy book. I enjoyed it much more at that point. I'm not going to say it is a great book, but it is at least passably entertaining. I made it through to the end. By this time I had low expectations of the book and those expectations were met or exceeded. This is a book to read but not get too worked up in the details. Speaking directly to Tom Clancy: Thank you for this effort but we are ready for another traditional Tom Clancy novel.