Drift

Carrick & Watkins, Book 1

By: Jon McGoran

Narrated by: Marc Vietor

Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

When Philadelphia narcotics detective Doyle Carrick loses his mother and step-father within weeks of each other, he gains a 20-day suspension for unprofessional behavior and instructions to lay low at the unfamiliar house he’s inherited in rural Pennsylvania. Feeling restless and out of place, Doyle is surprised to find himself falling for his new neighbor, Nola Watkins, who’s under pressure to sell her organic farm to a large and mysterious development company. He’s more surprised to see high-powered drug dealers driving the small-town roads - dealers his bosses don’t want to hear about. But when the drug bust Doyle’s been pushing for goes bad and the threats against Nola turn violent, Doyle begins to discover that what’s growing in the farmland around Philadelphia is much deadlier than anything he could have imagined... Quick, clever, and terrifying, Jon McGoran’s Drift is a commercial thriller in the tradition of Nelson DeMille’s Plum Island.

©2013 Jon McGoran (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Decent, not great

First, I personally hate heroes who are only really interested in saving their girlfriend. To me it makes the hero petty and trite. But the story was solid, and the action was good.

DRIFT go to the TOP OF THE LIST! Fantastic

Rarely do I get everything I want in a book but this one is a gift to my ears. Great mystery, no loose ends, complicated plot twists, fabulous character development. I smell a hint of an agenda but it didn't take from the thrill of this book. I found myself liking this character, not too badass, not too fearless, he misses his Mom after she dies and is relentless at solving the mystery.

Let me take a minute to say why I love Marc Vietor as a Narrator. First his voice is old Hollywood amazing and crisp, like Errol Flynn, Cary Grant, Olivier, you get the picture. When he reads there is so much control and character definition that you can coast with him driving you through the plot without having to back up and see which characters are speaking. He never makes a female character sound like a drag queen, nor botches up accents. There is no smacking mouth sounds or dry mouth like so many others of lesser quality pollute into the narration. This is an art form. Millions of audio being downloaded every day with users like me who have listened to hundreds of voices. Book narration is not film, not a play, not a radio broadcast, but a new form that takes shape with mental pictures as when you read yourself, his timing gives support to imagination without distraction and adds to the experience in every way.

I am looking forward to book two.

Yawn.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I wondered if a different reader might have rendered the protagonist to be more intriguing personality. I felt that Vietor lapsed into cliche, and missed many opportunities where the expression behind the text might have altered the dullness of writing.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

I wasn't expecting great literature, merely seeking an intriguing pleasure. This reading fell flat for me. I ended up fast-voicing through large segments as I reached the conclusion. It was just not very imaginatively written. See above.

How could the performance have been better?

By getting a performer who could envision the protagonist differently and less as a stock character in a cliche'd suspense novel.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Drift?

yawn.

Any additional comments?

no

If You're From Philly… SOUND LIKE IT *#*@#!!

Marc Vietor has not the slightest trace of the Delaware Valley in his mouth! As I wrote about Jim McCance's reading of Robert Ellis's "The Dead Room" … "I'm a muti generational Philadelphian. No one in Philly speaks like any of Jim McCance's characters. He's like listening to an Austrailian speaking American, you know, like drinking beer with fruit in it." Substitute Vietor's name for McCance's above… K?

But the Dead Room was a good book, Drift, well, not so much. Oh, the very basic nut of the plot's clever… Frankenfood and like that. But the stupidity of Doyle Garrick in not comprehending what every reader knows half way through this thing is beyond irritating. Nope, I'm finished with this series. On a like-ability scale of 1-5, Carrick's underwater into negative range. McGoran writes well enough, but he seems to be touching all the boxes on a 'You Too Can Write A Novel School's' check list of things that belong between the covers.Spatula in the sappy relationship between Carrick and damsel-in-distress Watkins and BLEH! What's she see in Garrick? He's not described but I guess he looks what? Virile? Otherwise he's an unredeemed ass.

Oh yeah… I now live approximately where this story is supposed to be set. Maybe I'll get the county commissioners to sue McGoran for defamation? Has Carrick ever visited Pennsylvania? AAARGH!

And here we go again with the… Everyone- in- every- police- agency- but- the- hero's- an- idiot- theme… Authority SH*TS is so overused as a plot device that it should come wrapped around a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

Yep, didn't like it. Recommend you invest your credit and time other-where. Feel like my memory needs a HAZMAT shower to wash away the MEH!