Bad News Travels

A Thriller (Lancaster & Daniels, Book 3)

By: James Swain

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

Family secrets become a blackmailer's deadly weapon in this pulse-pounding thriller by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of No Good Deed.

The shocking suicide of Beth Daniels' father - a prominent surgeon - has thrown the FBI agent into a tailspin. But when Beth heads to Saint Augustine, Florida, for the funeral, she'll need more than the emotional support of her boyfriend, retired detective Jon Lancaster. She'll need his gut instinct for solving a mystery.

No sooner do they arrive than suspicions are aroused. There's the pair of Russians who seem to be watching every move the family makes. A final, cryptic phone call Martin Daniels made to his granddaughter. Strange blood evidence on his estate. More than $1 million missing from Martin’s account. And his cell phone, wiped clean, along with clues to a double life. To Beth, it's disturbingly clear: the man she loved was a stranger.

As she and Jon delve into Martin's past, they have no idea where the secrets will take them. Or how dangerous it will be to expose the conspiracies, the cover-ups, and the terrible truths of Martin's life - and death.

©2020 James Swain (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

A P.I. and an FBI agent

This is an entertaining book that has crimes, mystery, adventure, and a bit of romance. It is fast paced in the hardboiled detective style and I like the characters. I have mixed feelings about the performance. His performance is excellent as far as his way of speaking with appropriate emotion, etc., but the voice for Jon Lancaster just didn't "fit" for my feelings about that character. To me the voice sounded like a 60 year old man.

Really Shows Off Swains Writing Chops

Bad News Travels is the third book in the Lancaster & Daniels series and has the duo getting a bit more settled working together. But, there’s still some drama since they’re still learning each other and what their relationship means both professionally and emotionally.

The story in this one took lots of twists and turns. At one point, I was only a couple of hours into it and I thought they had it completely buttoned up. I was wrong of course, with more than five hours in the audiobook left – things were just getting started. Swain was able to keep up a relentless pace and continue throwing curveballs at the reader and at Lancaster and Daniels as they tried to put the multiple different theories into one solution.

I like the combination of the “gut-feeling” of Lancaster and the “bureau thoroughness” that Daniels brings. It’s a nice contrast and definitely makes the story interesting (especially when they butt heads). It makes these stories both fun and interesting to read while also making them fly by.

Overall, I thought that Bad News Travels really showed off Swain’s writing chops. He was able to write a story that jumped off the page, felt real, and also kept me guessing. You can’t ask for much more out of a story.

Another Great Story

James Swain uses his knowledge of Florida to bring you deeper into the story line. Having found his books on Audible makes it so much easier to enjoy.

Patrick Lawlor is excellent

Another enjoyable and unpredictable book by author James Swain. The dynamic duo of Lancaster and Daniel gives their investigations a good give and take between Daniels letter of the law per the FBI and the rogue 'take no prisoners' of ex-seal, ex-cop Lancaster. I enjoyed this book as I have Swain's other book. If you enjoy audible books, check-out Patrick Lawlor entertaining portrayal of the various characters in Bad News Travels...

Keep Them Coming!

I've really enjoyed this series and hope it continues. It's fast-paced, chalk full of adventure and bad-assery, and the characters are just plain fun to follow.

This third book follows our pot-bellied PI and his lady love FBI agent on another wild ride, this one hitting once again close to home for Agent Daniels.

The audiobook was also another excellent listen, and I really like this narrator. He does a great job voicing Lancaster, capturing that rebellious attitude and that sort of fearless, in your face way he has about everything, but also has distinctive voices for the other characters as well.

Keep these coming! I hope there's more!

Why is FBI agent so dumb?

I love the main character, but the female FBI agent never seems to have a clue. How is she qualified to be in FBI? She never solves anything and always seems astounded by the main characters ideas. Love the story just wish the female character was less useless.

Great story but narration leaves lot to be desired

Enjoyed this book in the Lancaster Daniels series and a big fan of many other Swain series. However the narration performance wasn't stellar. I don't know why he still chooses a gravelly, growly voice for the male protagonist / hero. His girlfriend who is supposed to be a strong female character seems diminished by the voice portrayed for her. I don't believe the narrator has enough vocal range to do all the female voices.

I ended up switching to Kindle reading format without Audible and my experienced improved.

So many story problems

Overall, this is a fun story. There is some action, and it has a decent pace. However, it is plagued with silly twists and turns that don’t make any sense. Part of this might be that I read a bunch of thrillers, and as a result, understand some of the laws that the characters are breaking. Some of this is that people just don’t behave the way the author describes them.

*spoilers ahead**

Consider this...

1) one of the characters opines that IPA’s were only invented to add alcohol to beer and to get people drunk.

2) the father of an FBI agent commits suicide, the FBI is perfectly fine with her investigating.

3) FBI agents go to a guy’s house to question him. Before they even ask a question, one of the agents tells him he has one two many “pot” plants and he is going to arrest him. His reasoning? If He let one guy get away with having too many plants he knew that everyone else would hear about it. ???

4) the FBI agent investigating her father’s death arrests an important suspect, she and her other agents, watch while the protagonist, beats in the dude to get him to talk. They won’t do it themselves, but this is standard practice.

5) the dirty cop gets arrested and gets a lawyer and gets out on a 300k bail in a day.

6) then he commits suicide, and our hero’s read about the suicide in the paper. They don’t mention at all that they should have known he was out, no one called anyone etc etc.

7) there are so many more, including this line, she’s a teenager, take her out to the range and shoot with her, once she realizes she isn’t as good as you it will take her down a peg and she will be easier to talk to...

But the worst is this.

8) the whole story hinges on a man who is an older doctor. He is sexually active, and meets a woman younger than his daughter. She is trying to extort him, by videoing their wild sex and threatening to tell his family. Tell them what exactly? Oh, that an older man had a relationship with a woman not his wife? Definitely worth 250k to keep her quiet.

There are many many others and these things may not bother you. I’ve listened to all three of these books and dealt with some story issues in the others but this one was over the top.

Also, the gravel of the narrator really annoys me after a while.