Crack

By: D E McCluskey

Narrated by: Tim Welch

Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Addiction is an affliction.

As you crave you endure sweats, irritations, sleepless nights. Your life suffers, your job suffers.... Your family suffers.

But you need it. You have to have your fix.

Joe O'Hara is having a bad morning, and it's just about to get worse.

A random road traffic accident sends him on the path to addiction. Crack is the only thing that can give him any relief from his living hell - but it's a far cry from the crack you might think it is.

Crack is a psychological horror from D E McCluskey, author of The Twelve.

©2016 David McCluskey (P)2020 David McCluskey

Not what you would expect!!

This book could easily be described in ultimately one word: shocking. I found this book to be very gruesome and disturbing. If you’re the type of reader who enjoys sitting on the edge of your seat, this book is for you. This could be seen as an uncomfortable book to get through, but the unpredictable and twisted concepts of horror keep you that more intrigued. Since the book could be very graphic, I feel the narrator Tim Welch did a great job in remaining clear and easy to understand. He put emphasis on certain words, like CRACK throughout the read which reeled me in even more. The delivery from Tim Welch ultimately added to the type of suspense the author conveys throughout the storyline.

Great story, iffy narration

The story was outstanding! A true page turner if you will. However, the narrator was really hard to like. I even heard background noise of someone saying “be here about an hour..” I truly did love the story, not sure about the ending, but would LOVE to see a sequel to this come out!!

awesome

this book brings a whole new meaning of crack with a immersive story Into a man's downward spiral with plenty of what the hell moments along the way it's disturbing and intriguing with well developed characters and not over the top bloody so there is plenty of story there too

Check out this guy's CRACK

I received a code for this book in exchange for an honest review.

I usually don't prefer doing so, but when I saw this book's premise, I figured I'd take the risk. I'm glad I did, because from D E McCluskey’s opening words, I knew his CRACK would be a fun ride once I got inside it.

The more I sink myself into the “seedier” genres of horror, the more I find the fun in it. If I had to label this type of story, I’d put it firmly in the late-80s/early-90s exploitation B-movie category, but this one has a lot less of the sexual component than you’d expect. Yes, it’s exploitative and all the violence is directed at women, but it’s done so with a smirk and a wink at the camera. Add to that a bucket of blood and gore, and you’ve got yourself a fun little experience.

As for the nitty-gritty: The concept of the story is one I’ve not seen before. The killer’s addiction to a sound is not only unique, but it leads the reader to also wince every time the sound comes back into the narrative. And it’s such a simple one, too. CRACK. The CRACK brought on by an unfortunate (in many more ways than one) accident. The CRACK of the killer’s sanity. The CRACK it leaves in multiple families.
I love it.

The narration did take some time for me to get used to, however. I’m not saying it’s bad, it isn’t bad. It’s just not the timbre and cadence I’m used to. Tim Welch hits every sentence hard, and each CRACK is rattling. It’s the type of narration you’d want for a story like this, and it was just an issue of me not being used to his style that started me on an uneasy footing.

At 9 hours, CRACK is a long enough listen that you’ll get your fill of blood and violence, but it doesn’t overstay its welcome. But, it’s also short enough that I won’t feel bad coming back to it between larger works.

You should check out D E McCluskey’s CRACK. (let your mind figure out what I mean by that)

My Crack Review

The book Crack by D E McCluskey is about a night time security officer Joe O Hara who is the main character of the book. Joe lives with his family, His wife Karen, son Martin, and daughter Anne Marie. They also have a pet dog named Nixon. The story starts out normally but then takes a very hard turn. Joe is driving his kids to school one morning and as he’s driving home he unfortunately causes an accident that was very life changing not only to Joe but his whole family as well. Every time that Joe tried to get some rest or get his mind off it he always heard the loud noise…….CRACK! When he heard that he was always brought back to the scene of the accident that he created. It would turn from a very big negative in the beginning of the book but then turn into a sick positive. He tried everything that he possibly could to move past this and go back to normal again but nothing he was doing was working because he wasn’t getting any sleep and he wasn’t acting like himself still. It came to the point where Joe even went to a therapist appointment that the doctor at the hospital where Joe was recovering from told him to see. At first Joe was very skeptical about getting help because he didn’t think that this was that big of a problem but then he couldn’t ignore it anymore since it kept eating him up inside. He went to the therapist with his wife where he was hypnotized by the therapist. At first the appointment was successful because the therapist prescribed him some sleeping medication that would help him start sleeping better when in reality it just made things go from bad to worse. Joe took the pills one night on his day off from work and he didn’t experience the same night mare that he usually did. Only this time he didn’t have a car accident he killed his family pet Nixon in a dream that later became a reality because when he woke up from that dream the dog was missing. We find out that the dog was dead and in the garage where Joe had left him in his “dream”. He ended up going to a nearby pond and disposing of the decayed body. The next night Joe kept hearing the frightening sound that had been haunting him since the accident….CRACK! Joe was doing his runs at work and he hid in the woods waited for a fox to appear where he later shot and killed it. He walked into a nearby van and just like the accident and just like his dog Nixon he ran over the fox’s head. The CRACK sound that he had been hearing was not a negative at this point in the book it had turned into a sick positive. Towards the end the deceased animals come back to life in some sick plot twist and attack Joe’s family and end up killing his own daughter Anne Marie. Crack was a very disturbing book and if your into those things than I would suggest giving it a listen. I also liked the narration by Tim Welch I think he did a great job with guiding the audience through the story and I think he could do more of this in the future.

Hell of a ride

This listen was sooooo not what I was expecting given the title and the blurb I'd read. A great story and think it works brilliantly as an audio book. I have to say that I really thought I'd not get on with the staccato style of delivery of Tim Welch but it fitted with the story line perfectly

More horror than plot

This wasn’t the book I was expecting. It’s firmly in the Horror genre but parts of it read like a snuff film. I was expecting more psychological thriller and less sexual violence over all. The book does open with a scene that portends what the rest of the story will be like; had this not been a for-review book, I would have put it down there. It’s just not my cup of tea.

The main character, Joe, snapped at some point prior to where this story starts. Life pushed him too hard and he couldn’t take it and all that internal rage cracked out into this unhealthy need to kill. Cracking skulls is the only thing that gives Joe a few days of peace these days. The story shows how his need escalates from killing animals to killing women. There’s a fair amount of description spent on Joe’s orgasms, which occur with each cracked skull. It definitely adds to the ick factor that is Joe’s life.

The story goes from one victim to the next: animals, Joe beating up his wife, the women he kills, his therapist who he fantasizes about, etc. Joe doesn’t have much of a personality throughout the story. At first, it’s a little interesting because Joe has this imaginary friend he talks to, but the interest quickly faded for me because Joe remains a one-dimensional character throughout. Though, there at the very end, the plot tries to humanize him.

The ladies are victims and romantic interests throughout. All the male characters, not just Joe, refer to the women as girls throughout the story, failing to make the distinction between actual girls and grown women. If it was just Joe doing that, I would say it’s part of his character, but the other men do it too. The ladies had small roles. Even Paula, the police detective, is sexualized and made a victim throughout. One of the victims even gets her hands undone from Joe’s restraints and then, conveniently, gives up and lets the end come. So I was pretty disappointed in the use of the female characters all around.

For me, the end was unsatisfactory. There is no real justice. 2.5/5 stars.

The Narration: Tim Welch had an odd cadence to his narration. He put extra emphasis on a few words each sentence, like he was trying to add excitement or anticipation to each and every sentence. It was part old-time radio drama and part sports announcer. I got used to it and for some scenes, like the gory murder scenes, it made sense. I did like his voice over all for Joe. Welch tried to give each character their own voice, but they often blended together if 2 or more characters were talking together. His female voices could use more femininity. There were no technical issues with the recording. 3/5 stars.

I received a free copy of this book. My opinions are 100% my own.

one CRACKed story

A good story told from two different point of views that collide harshly. Thanks to the author, DE Mccluskey for a free code for his gory work. The title will not be forgotten as you read/listen to this one as CRACK is often repeated. It gets to the point of being annoyingly overused, but as the plot goes on we realize that is the point. The author does a good job writing from the killer's viewpoint as well as those in pursuit. Three stars as the ending was a cliffhanger, but maybe there is more to the story somewhere down the line.

Don't do CRACK kids

I want to be very clear here: I LOVED this story, but I strongly disliked the narration of it. I had to go through my ebook version of this to make sure that the author hadn't used a ton of unnecessary commas. Spoiler alert: he did not. It's just narrated in a very stilted, staccato style. This narration style grated on my nerves the entire way through the book, and if I hadn't loved the story so much, I would have given up after the prologue. But Joe's weird addiction became my weird addiction and I just had to know how far he would take it and how much he would unravel along the way. This was a gripping portrait of one man's descent into madness that I won't soon be forgetting! Well done D E McCluskey!

Woah!

I am so glad I no longer drive. It's obviously become a seriously dangerous and profoundly moving experience in the dozen or so years since I gave up my licence. Poor Joe, you didn't get the feeling he was living his best life before the accident. After the accident, boy oh boy, things got very bad, very quickly. I think it says more about me when I sobbed more about the dog than anything or anyone else. I can't hear any sound even similar to 'CRACK' now without the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. Mr McCluskey's imagination is extremely, erm, imaginative! I'm thanking all my gods that he chooses to write about the things going on in his head rather than act them out. Not for the faint hearted, Crack gets down and dirty in the guts, gore and gristle and sweeps you in so close you could smell and taste the blood in the air. This is my first audio book by D.E. McCluskey but I can assure you it won't be my last! Listen with the lights on!