Lie Down with Lions

By: Ken Follett

Narrated by: Eric Lincoln, Lary Bradenburg, Donald Brearley, Jane Brady, Marie Chambers, Pennell Drake

Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Ellis, the American. Jean-Pierre, the Frenchman.... They were two men on opposite sides of the cold war, with a woman torn between them. Together, they formed a triangle of passion and deception, racing from terrorist bombs in Paris to the violence and intrigue of Afghanistan - and on to the moment of truth and a deadly decision for all of them.

©1986 Ken Follett (P)1986 Brilliance Audio

Critic reviews

"Masterful...plot and counterplot, treachery, cunning and killing...keep you on edge every moment." ( Associated Press)
"A deadly romantic triangle, a clandestine mission with global stakes, an exotic location, a plot as gripping and ingenious as Eye of the Needle...engineered to perfection with breathless acceleration." ( Los Angeles Times)

makes me want my money back

Follett has written some crackling page-turners and riveting stories. Unfortunately, "Lie Down with Lions" is not one of these. Predicable plot turns are laced with 1980s political correctness - CIA evil, American on "wrong side" in Vietnam -- and mixed with explicit sex so puerile that any but teen-aged boys are tempted to fast forward.
Add to this a truly awful narration - especially the falsetto female voices - and the audio version is even worse than the print one.

He's come a long way since this!

Wanted to try an older one since I like his new ones so much. This is not very good. The narration and multiple character voices are really annoying. I had very little attachment to any of these characters…sex scenes were real cringers. Overall just "yuck". See if you can find a better option, you will be disappointed by this one.

Just pretty tertible.

That's all. Tortured plot. Too many convenient coincidences. Writing not very sopohisticated. Hard to believe it's the same author as Pillars of the Earth.

What a bunch of Horse S***

Ken Follet is no longer one of my favorite authors! All the BS in this book about Vietnam is just that. BULL S***!!!!. I believe the guy who wrote Eye of the Needle, Night over Water and the Pillars of the Earth wrote this turd.

not a typical Ken Follett

his sophomoric use of 4 letter words, reminds me of a highschooler first learning to use them. the use of actors instead on the narrator was very annoying. Glad I got this book during a sale, if I had paid the regular price I would have been really annoyed.

Unlistenable

Would you try another book from Ken Follett and/or the narrators?

I like many of Ken Follett's books, but the audio editing and narration was so bad that the book seemed stilted and just bad. I honestly don't know if I would have enjoyed reading this book. It is hard to separate the story from the audio.

What didn’t you like about the narrators’s performance?

The audio was spliced together from several voice actors. This has worked well for other stories that were staged as plays. Unfortunately, this is a collection of recordings spliced together. The timing is always a little off and the volumes are not well equalized.

Bottom line is that it is always obvious that the voices are spliced together and the flow of the story is lost. Instead of losing myself in the story, I was always aware that I was listening to spliced together soundbites.

I could not finish the story - actually quit for a while, tried again and quit again. I didn't make it past the 4th chapter.

Good Story...not his best.

Good Story...not his best.

Just Okay

Not much real substance nor enlightening plot.
Pretty weak iteration of the same CIA agent in Afghanistan story written many times over by many authors.
I would guess that the author spent more time on writing the sex scenes than coming up with anything else in the book.
Terrific performances by the narration team and production of the audio book. They did an amazing job considering the mediocre book they were tasked to do.
I wouldn't recommend this book unless it were free and you're just bored. There is only so much time in one's life and I would hate to see anyone use theirs in such a wasteful manner.

Terrible

Do you like listening to to disclaimers at the end of a drug commercial? Then you will love this. Did the sound engineer speed up the narrator’s voice. I like Ken Follett but I lasted about an hour trying to ignore the terrible audio engineering but the writing was also bad. Hard to imagine he actually wrote this simplistic drivel. Hard No

good plot but poor character development...

...and the smuttiest thing I have ever read...by a long shot... author mustn't have been getting his properly at home so he had to write about it...