Liars & Thieves

Tommy Carmellini, Book 1

By: Stephen Coonts

Narrated by: Guerin Barry

Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Tommy Carmellini - who dazzled thriller fans in Stephen Coonts' Cubaand Liberty - is the CIA's top man for jobs that require extreme stealth, breaking-and-entering skills, and split-second, sometimes lethal, decisions.

In Liars & Thieves, he's sent to post guard duty at a farmhouse in Virginia's remote Blue Ridge Mountains, where top government operatives are debriefing a star defector: the ultimate KGB insider, a man with records on every operation and every dirty trick the shadowy intelligence agency has ever run, from Lenin to Putin.

Carmellini arrives to find the guards shot dead, and a ruthless team of commandos - American commandos - slaughtering everyone in sight, then setting the house on fire. He escapes a hail of bullets and a deadly mountain car chase with what seems to be the sole survivor, a beautiful and mysterious translator who steals his car and leaves him for dead at the first chance.

What secrets did the defector know? Who would have killed to prevent him from talking? And how could a hit team act so fast, so efficiently, and so murderously without intimate, inside knowledge of the debriefing?

Smart money says someone in the U.S. government is behind the massacre and is now after Carmellini. And that begs the biggest question of all: in a world where nothing is as it seems and no one is who he pretends to be, who can Carmellini trust?

Finding out will be terrifying. The answer may be deadly.

©2004 Stephen Coonts (P)2004 Brilliance Audio

Critic reviews

"Tommy is smart, brave, skilled and possessed of enough self-deprecating, wisecracking wit to endear him to readers. Jake Grafton makes an appearance to help save the day, but Tommy proves himself more than capable of saving the world on his own." ( Publishers Weekly)
"Barry is adept at accents and offbeat characters, and the story gives him a lot to work with." ( AudioFile)

Great fun read

Really enjoyed this...nice humor, twisted plot lines, good characters. Reader has excellent command of voices and conveys the humor and drama in excellent fashion (though wish he would pause briefly at "change of scene!" Carmellini is a very promising character...

Good Listen

I like the Tommy Carmelini character in these books. Some say that Jake Grafton should be front & center. Not ever having read one where Grafton was THE character, I really enjoyed this. I love Carmelini's sarcasm and sense of humor.

Attention graber

I hadn't read or listened to any books by Stephen Coonts before, but now I've become a fan. This audio grabs your interest from the get go, and holds it until the end.

It was alright.

Performance was pretty good but the story lacked the detail you desire and expect. Lacked detail like a movie does. If it's on sale or you're bored, it's not a bad book.

It is so good, I couldn’t stop listening.

It is an exceptional good storyline, which will keep you wanting to listen to one more chapter. I throughly enjoyed this book.

a good story, well narrated

very enjoyable, fast moving but not confusing (not too many characters) .i will listen to it again one day

Juvenile hero

Was this written for teenage boys? The dialog was juvenile ...teen male hero stuff with too much unbelievable gun play. Just the kind of macho action that would make the perfect summer movie for teen/young men. The hero is definitely a misogynist and the women all need rescuing. Ugh.
Somewhere in that mess was a pretty good story line but it was hard to stick with it long enough to see it through.

Barely tolerable

I've never written an audible book review before, but had to do so on this one. I wonder if actually reading this book would make it better, but listening to it by this narrator was untenable. If not THE worst narration, it was certainly at the bottom two or three I've ever heard in over 10 years of audible downloads. Barry may do well at other books, but this one was extremely poor.

Dissapointed

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I really like the Deep Black series, but this title predates Deep Black, and is not up to par. I not sure if it's the narration or the attempt to be old Noir style, but it sounded like it wanted to be a Raymond Chandler type, but in modern day, which isn't working. Half way through listening and I wanted anyone interested to know to PASS on this title even at the $4.95 price.

Who was your favorite character and why?

None

Would you be willing to try another one of Guerin Barry’s performances?

No. Do not like his treatment of this title

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

It's unabridged is both good and bad. May not finish if it doesn't get better soon.

Any additional comments?

If you've never read Stephen Coonts, pick a different title, try a Deep Black series.

Fun characters, such a shame re: the overt sexism

This book is an interesting combination of a fun new spin on the CIA operative and buddy genres, and for this reason it is such a shame that the author makes what I would think are really basic rookie mistakes that his editor should have fixed immediately. The first is the noir detective language that is supposed to make his lead character look tough. It just stands out as dated and awkward, especially given the post-Clinton setting of the book. The second mistake is worse. It is the overt sexism that borders on misogyny. From his buddy commenting on the main character's love of "big tits" to the main character assessing a woman's sexual history by saying, "she's no Monica", it's quite disgusting. I'm honestly not sure who to hold more accountable - the author himself or his editor. Both were apparently fine with all of this. Even early on, the signs are there. The lead's thoughts of, "what should I do about the women?" comes off a lot like he's talking about animals or objects. Yes, the character was debating how to protect two women without military training from assassins, so he was doing a good thing, but it sounded so very callous because this character knows both women. Has spent time with them. He knows their names. Given the dated macho overtones in the language, even this benign seeming sentence comes off as, well, off. And it is such an obvious fix with a sentence that uses the women's names. Finally, all three single, pretty women in the book end up in bed with the lead character or proposition him directly. It is so, so tedious. There IS a smart wife character, and also her fun outspoken mother-in-law character. Both are great. So, the author does know how to write women characters. This is another reason why the sexism is such a disappointment. What happened? He was so close to a great book. Why did his editor allow this? The macho sexism is so very obviously a liability. I can't help but compare to Daniel Silva's books. His lead character is SUCH a badass, and the women in his books are much more interesting as characters, and they are respected. The lack of sexism in Silva's writing did not in any way weaken his main character. Women DO read espionage. This matters. All this said, I might listen to the second book in the series for two reasons. The first is that now this is an anthropological investigation I can conduct while cleaning my floors. I'm curious if the writing gets better. The second is that I really like the wing man - an African American ex-con, a DC native who has seen a lot. With espionage books being notoriously white, this is nice character to discover. I hope the second book corrects the mistakes of the first, but not hopeful.