Niceville

By: Carsten Stroud

Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee

Something is wrong in Niceville. . .
A boy literally disappears from Main Street. A security camera captures the moment of his instant, inexplicable vanishing. An audacious bank robbery goes seriously wrong: four cops are gunned down; a TV news helicopter is shot and spins crazily out of the sky, triggering a disastrous cascade of events that ricochet across twenty different lives over the course of just thirty-six hours.
Nick Kavanaugh, a cop with a dark side, investigates. Soon he and his wife, Kate, a distinguished lawyer from an old Niceville family, find themselves struggling to make sense not only of the disappearance and the robbery but also of a shadow world, where time has a different rhythm and where justice is elusive.
. . .Something is wrong in Niceville, where evil lives far longer than men do.
Compulsively readable, and populated with characters who leap off the page, Niceville will draw you in, excite you, amaze you, horrify you, and, when it finally lets you go, make you sorry you have to leave.
Read the first thirty-five pages. Find out why Harlan Coben calls Carsten Stroud the master of “the nerve-jangling thrill ride.”

Critic reviews

“Strange, outrageous and wonderful… Offers surprises, shocks, moments of lyricism, explosions of humor and unrelenting suspense. It’s superior storytelling. Call it the summer’s darkest, most delicious guilty pleasure.” —Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post Book World

“[An] A-ticket thrill-ride… As enthralling as a tale by the Brothers Grimm.” —Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal

“Take a pinch of brilliant characters. Stir in some snappy dialogue and a helping of high-octane plot. Blend with a fantastically spooky location and serve hot. Carsten Stroud’s bouillabaisse of a new novel is a simmering read; one part thriller, one part suspense, and taken with a hefty sprinkling of supernatural hot spice, it’s one of the most compulsive page-turners of the year.” —A.J. Kirby, The New York Journal of Books

“A unique genre-bending novel that will haunt readers long after the last page… Niceville is a town readers have to visit for themselves in order to believe.” —Elizabeth Rabin, Fredericksburg Free Lance Star

“A generous collection of memorable villains, tight action sequences, and an occasional bit of black humor.” —Booklist

“Terrific dialogue, oddball characters, and a wild story make this a great read.” —Elmore Leonard, author of Get Shorty and Out of Sight

"Carsten Stroud's hard-boiled and engrossing Niceville rockets around its deceptively staid southern town, pulling bad guys and worse guys and long-ago misdeeds into a widening and unfolding tale about every kind of wickedness. Somehow it manages to get tighter, nastier, and more delightful as it rolls along toward its lovely and completely black-hearted final pages." —Peter Straub

"A compelling work that grabs your attention from page one." —Karin Slaughter

A truly one-of-a-kind tour de force, Niceville may be hard to categorize by genre, but it’s easy to describe as a reading experience – wildly, insanely entertaining! —John Lescroart

Great story but failed to blow my mind

I can't say that I didn't like this story. I really did. It was interesting, intriguing, and well written. I found it to be a little drawn out, some of the extensive back stories and character development was lost on me (I should also note that I have the attention span of turnip). So...great story, performed very well, a little wordy at times, and the climax that brought everything together didn't quite melt my brain as terminally as I had hoped it would; certainly a worthy read/listen.

Good Story- Wrong Reader

Stephen King tweeted about how much he liked this book and The Homecoming, so of course I bought it right away! I really liked the story- crime mixed with supernatural elements I guess you could say--but the reader- sorry- just so breathy and sing songy- probably right or some stories, but not for this one.

So I don't know- maybe try the sample and see if you're ok with the reader before you buy it- or try the book. I see the next one is read by someone else so fingers crossed for a better outcome.

Not Sure and Probably Not

A friend of mine suggested that I should give "Niceville" a try because we are both super fans of Stephen King. Stephen King tweeted that he liked this book by Carsten Stroud. The book has all different stories of the people that lives in Niceville. It also has a supernatural theme to it. After researching more of this book, it's an ongoing trilogy. I'm not sure if I will continue on the series. Unless Audible has the next book on sale, I will probably won't read the rest, but the first book was fun while it lasted.

Couldn't get through it.

Took too long to be interesting. Narrator wasn't a good fit. Overall waste of funds.

Too disjointed

I like a book with a large amount of characters but half of them have nothing to do with the main story. There are two plot lines going on that have nothing to do with each other. This made the book hard to follow at times. Neither story is very interesting.