I Am Pilgrim

By: Terry Hayes

Narrated by: Christopher Ragland

Length: 22 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

National Book Awards 2014: Crime/Thriller Book of the Year

Can you commit the perfect crime?

Pilgrim is the code name for a man who doesn't exist. The adopted son of a wealthy American family, he once headed up a secret espionage unit for US intelligence. Before he disappeared into anonymous retirement, he wrote the definitive book on forensic criminal investigation. But that book will come back to haunt him. It will help NYPD detective Ben Bradley track him down. And it will take him to a run-down New York hotel room where the body of a woman is found facedown in a bath of acid, her features erased, her teeth missing, her fingerprints gone. It is a textbook murder - and Pilgrim wrote the book.

What begins as an unusual and challenging investigation will become a terrifying race against time to save America from oblivion. Pilgrim will have to make a journey from a public beheading in Mecca to a deserted ruin on the Turkish coast via a Nazi death camp in Alsace and the barren wilderness of the Hindu Kush in search of the faceless man who would commit an appalling act of mass murder in the name of his god.

This is now the entire audiobook, not in two parts.

©2012 Terry Hayes (P)2013 Penguin Audio

Don't Whisper Any Spoilers

What a good yarn. Lots of twists and turns, lots of daring do, lots of stuff I never knew. Trouble with stories like this is you know the hero will make it to the end, but right now.....it's crazy enough to make you doubt that....and just HAVE TO keep going to find out how! :-)

Brilliant

So good I have listened to it twice and will probably listen to it again!

very well written, exciting all the way

Could hardly put this book down. Interesting plot from start to finish with many twists and turns along the way and some very creative ways out of the problems our protagonist face.
My only complaint, though very small, was some of the long winded side stories. Their length sometimes had me thinking "get on with it!".
Still five stars for the quality and detail this story went to.

Gripping book. Well done

White knuckle ride. Real thriller. Well written and gripping. I enjoyed every minute. Be prepared for a long read

Hooked

Thoroughly hooked. To be kept fascinated for more than 20 hours is unreal. Best audiobook I’ve ever listened to - out of some 200 titles so far. Narrator’s performance simply outstanding. Be warned, you will never be the same after this book.

10/10!!!!

What a book!
Excellent storyline, fantastic characters, so well written and narrated.
Be prepared to get lost in a world of espionage.

Brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Best book ever. Story telling at its best and worthy of every min listen too

Good story...but wrong title.

If only the author decided to leave the 'Volume 1' out of books title, we would be much more content. The book stands as a complete story, and thus people wanting a followup would less disappointed. Bravo Mr Hayes.

Incredible Story line and finish

Awesome story line and narrating. I so enjoyed i am pilgrim from one end to the other. Highly recommended. Going to be hard to beat.

Highly Entertaining

If you could sum up I Am Pilgrim, Volume 1 in three words, what would they be?

Expansive mystery with lots of background.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

The plot was filled with background stories about all the characters. It was clear the author hoped to have all these various incidents somehow come together in the end, which they do. Unfortunately, this abundance of character information does not make the central plot about a threat to America any more original or interesting than many other books in the genre. The book is very well written and entertaining throughout, but one always has the feeling that one's heard it all before. The author is Australian and it shows, with more than the usual number of passing references to Australia, which is fine. However, the main character is American and little things in the book are obvious Australianisms, like "ring off" instead of "hang up" or "call around" instead of "stop by." It's a little bit annoying and the American editor should be taken to task for not picking up on it. In the end, this book reads like a movie with all the parts left in that won't be there when they do make a film of it.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Unfortunately for an audio book the narrator was the worst thing about this selection. His reading is fine, and he's very listenable. However, he is way too youthful to sound like the main character, which rendered the first person narrative wholly unbelievable. It's not the narrator's fault he was totally mis-cast. Also, his Australian accent was laughably bad. His foreign accents were no more authentic. If the producers of this audio book wanted to turn the book into a cartoon, they succeeded by using this narrator.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. I did, however, listen to it with interest and I did not listen to anything else at the same time. It kept me entertained for about 5 days.