The Gold Coast

By: Nelson DeMille

Narrated by: Christian Rummel

Length: 21 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Welcome to the fabled Gold Coast, that stretch on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America. Here two men are destined for an explosive collision: John Sutter, Wall Street lawyer, holding fast to a fading aristocratic legacy; and Frank Bellarosa, the Mafia don who seizes his piece of the staid and unprepared Gold Coast like a latter-day barbarian chief and draws Sutter and his regally beautiful wife, Susan, into his violent world. Told from Sutter's sardonic and often hilarious point of view, and laced with sexual passion and suspense, The Gold Coast is Nelson DeMille's captivating story of friendship and seduction, love and betrayal.

©2008 Nelson DeMille (P)2008 Hachette Audio

Narrator is great

Story line was very good . The narrator’s voice makes it all even more enjoyable. Will listen to next book in this series.

Excellent!

The character development in this book is superb. I loved the story and how it evolved. Excellent book!

One of Nelson DeMille's Best!

The violent world of Mafia Don Frank Bellarosa collides with that of "old
money" aristocrats John and Julia
Sutter when he moves into the mansion next door. Richly detailed descriptions
enable you to visualize their surroundings
on the fabled North Shore Gold Coast immortalized in the Great Gatsby.
Witty dialog is threaded together using
caustic (often self-deprecating) humor to weave a story of passion, intrigue & suspense. DeMille'sGold Coast is a riveting novel that I highly recommend !

An intriguing clash of cultures! Brilliant narration!

As author Nelson DeMille mentioned in his intro, that many relisten to “Gold Coast,” and I am one of those lucky ones. I have enjoyed my favorites a second time. After years and hundreds of audiobooks, I keep a complete list of every audiobook.

I was really excited about this book and, as it turned out, for good reason! First, I have to give narrator Christian Rummel due recognition for his flawless performance. Now a newly fave narrator of mine, he brings his expert talent to the forefront with each and every character, both male and female with his pitch-perfect tones. Through not my usual genre, I found this hidden gem this during Audible’s 2-for-1 sale and was delighted I did. This was a fresh, unique and exciting plot by author Nelson DeMille. His pure genius is revealed as he weaves a tale complete with humor throughout, sarcasm, danger and quirky characters (of which there are plenty). I found myself laughing out loud. A Wall Street lawyer John Sutter meets his new neighbor Frank Bellarosa, both so different from each other, it’s an interesting look at the formation of a bond they eventually share, and that ending! I bought Book 2, “The Gate House.” I can’t imagine anyone other than Rummel narrating this series. I am sorely disappointed that he narrates only two DeMille books. I will have to settle for the John Sutter Series now and hope for additions from this phenomenal duo. Please, may I have more? Epic, I say! EPIC! EPIC! EPIC!
✍🏻👏🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟👏✍🏻

Great storyline

We’ll crafter book that kept me engaged throughout, Reader was quite good and his voices were great. Very enjoyable.

Great story and great performance

Thoroughly enjoyed listening to The Gold Coast. The performance from Christian Rummel sets the standard for all narratives. Very enjoyable story. I would have rather the detailed dialogue continued through the final third, but despite that it is among my favorite books.

Definitely not DeMille's best

I was very disappointed in Gold Coast partially because I have come to expect so much from a Nelson Demille book and secondly because it seemed that reader reviews along with feedback from a friend who also likes Demille was so positive. This is a very plodding story that never picked up a lot of steam in my opinion. I was left with a sort of "what was the point of telling this story" type feeling as I felt there was no real peak or drive to the plot line. It lacks the page-turning nature of Lion's Game or Nightfall. I am not sure I will be getting the sequal, The Gate House.

Addictive characters; so-so story

After 21+ hours of The Gold Coast, I have mixed emotions. John Sutter and Frank Bellarosa were great characters. Sometimes they were likable; at other times they weren't. The story itself strained credulity. At times the pace was mercilessly slow. The story might have been better if told in the third person. We learned about everything from John's perspective and were left to speculate how much he had gotten right, even after the book had concluded. I also wish I had read all the reviews before checking the Publisher's Summary to the sequel (The Gate House). A previous reviewer tipped us off to the fact that Audible reveals the conclusion of The Gold Coast in that summary. I learned the conclusion less than halfway through The Gold Coast. Still I kept listening. I've even purchased The Gate House and look forward to picking up where The Gold Coast left off. Not sure why. Maybe it's those addictive characters.

a great journey

love this book. 3rd time thru it. the sequel is almost as good. Jon Sutter is almost as sarcastic as Jon Corey ( lions game)

Great Gatsby Meets The Godfather

I thoroughly enjoyed The Gold Coast and was hooked from page 1. The plot was compelling. The main character, John Sutter, was hysterically funny and sarcastic. He is the narrator of the story, and so it was enjoyable to see his character traits, such as his snobbism, revealed through his telling of the story. Frank Bellarosa, the mafia don in the book, was actually a likeable character. I think that is one of the things that made the book fun… reading about his crazy life and his Italian background. If Bellarosa hadn’t been as interesting, then the story might have fallen flat.

The women characters were not as well developed as the men. I never got much of a sense of what motivated Susan Stanhope. However, perhaps this degree of distance was necessary to carry off the plot and the ending? Anna Bellarosa was mainly a stereotype. Somehow the shallowness of these characters didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book.

The history of Long Island as well as parts about Italy and the way people like Frank Bellarosa lived in “little Italy” in New York were explored in The Gold Coast. The author examined the decline of the Gold Coast era… or basically the end of the Great Gatsby type life style in this super rich area of Long Island.

Frank Bellarosa is like a modern-day equivalent to Jay Gatsby. He is super rich, but he’s on the outside striving to fit in to this new community he’s bought in to, and not quite sure how. Many of his opulent choices clash with the sensibilities of the snobbish John Sutter, but still…. Frank Bellarosa is appealing, friendly, and alluring to both John and his wife, Susan. And so… it begins.

Here is a quote from Eli on Goodreads that summarizes what I felt very succinctly:

“I'm not sure I've ever read a novel that gave me quite as much pleasure as this one. Hilarious, suspenseful, and unexpectedly moving, it comes packaged as pulp fiction, and yet without pretensions acquires real weight and power. An absolute delight. “

Spoiler alert:
The ending of the book was the part I liked the least. I can’t think how else DeMille could have ended it, but somehow I was a bit disappointed. I do like that there is a little hope in the end that John and his wife MIGHT get back together later. Maybe the next book, The Gate House, deals with that. I hope so.






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