The Paris Vendetta

A Novel

By: Steve Berry

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “All the Steve Berry hallmarks are here: scale, scope, sweep, history—plus breathless second-by-second suspense. I love this guy.”—Lee Child

Former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone wakes to find an intruder in his Copenhagen bookshop: an American Secret Service agent with assassins on his heels. Narrowly surviving a ferocious firefight, the two journey to the secluded estate of Malone’s friend Henrik Thorvaldsen. The wily Danish tycoon has uncovered the insidious plans of the Paris Club, a cabal of multimillionaires bent on manipulating the global economy. But Thorvaldsen also harbors a hidden agenda—a vendetta—that will force Malone to choose between friend and country, past and present. Starting in Denmark, moving to England, and ending up in the storied streets and cathedrals of Paris, Malone is forced to match wits with a terrorist for hire and to plunge into a desperate hunt for Napoleon’s legendary treasure, lost for two hundred years. It’s a breathless game of duplicity and death, all to claim a prize of untold value. But at what cost?

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steve Berry’s The Columbus Affair and a Cotton Malone dossier.

©2009 Steve Berry (P)2009 Random House

Critic reviews

"Steve Berry always finds intriguing ways to link the past to the present in his fast-paced thrillers. The Paris Vendetta is his best yet."—Harlan Coben

Story kept a good pace, charter's are interesting

This is another good Cotton adventure, moves at a good pace. I recommend this book and will finish the series in order.

Better Berry this time

I've read or listened all of Berry's novels. This is, in my opinion, the best of the Cotton Malone series. After several books of steadily declining interest- (I barely made it through the Charlemagne one), this one is back to the level of high quality from Berry's earlier novels. At least you can say that Berry is more prolific than his obvious model Dan Brown- he's written the entire Malone series in about the time elapsed between Brown's last 2 books). This one works best because the focus is back on the characters-rather than some fantastic historical premise. The characters here, villains and heroes alike, are more interesting and complex this time.

Put a Brick In It, Scott

Overall, this is a fairly good book. I liked the themes of friendship and betrayal, and unrestrained greed vs. the morality of making money. The plot moved well enough. The characters were interesting and some were nicely developed, especially Cotton Malone and Torvald.

However, as other reviewers have noted, Scott Brick's narration pretty much spoils the book. He seems to be trying to control the lilt that makes each sentence sound like a question, but otherwise, his narration is just plain awful. He can't do accents at all; his "French" accent sounded like his "Italian" accent and Torvald's accent was unidentifiable. None of them has any claims to authenticity. He reads every sentence with the same degree of gravitas; for example, he uses the same tone to tell the reader how many bridges there are over the Seine as to describe action sequences where a character gets killed.

Do the production people actually listen to the finished product? How could anyone possibly miss how poorly Brick does the job? Random House, and any other publisher using Brick's narration services, needs to seriously reevalute his contract.

If Scott Brick is going to continue narrating audiobooks, he should be properly educated to do so. Otherwise, he should no longer be allowed to spoil the efforts of the authors with his terrible technique.

What a mess

This is my first, and last, Steve Berry novel.

I was half-way through a chapter and literally shouted-out "who cares".

Endless droning about Napoleon. Erratic jumps in time-line, characters, and location.

The narration didn't help much either.

Sorry, not my cup of tea. I wish I had read the reviews before buying this.

Boring

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

Twice I tried listening to this book and both times I couldn't finish. It may be interesting for history buffs since the author tends to discuss a lot of Napoleonic history.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Hunger Games

Worst Narrative Work Ever

This is the first time I have been completely driven from an Audible Book by the narrator. The "dripping tonal nuances" became just too much. I should have heeded the warnings of other readers.

Dreadful Narration, Just Dreadful

It has never occurred to me to try to get my money back but this narration is intolerable. I am going to delete the book from my library and write to audible to ask for a refund. I am going to be so careful from now on not to listen to anything read by Scott Brick. Anyone considering this book should listen to a preview. He can't do accents, he can't do women, it is impossible to keep the characters straight. It is like listening to a really bad preacher, that sort of whiny tone. .

Uggggh

I have listened to about 1 hour of this book and could bear it no longer. The story is old, the language is hackneyed, and the reader, oh the reader...dull, dull, dull. Can't think of a reason to give it even one star.

Historically loaded, stagnant plot

This book was a thorough letdown. While the story was packed with endless historical references, the characters we have come to know in Malone and Thorvaldsen were like strangers in Berry's latest effort.
The story lines changed with such abruptness that the listener needs a moment to figure out what is happening. This was a tale that took forever to go nowhere.

Bad Narrator

The story itself looks like it has lots of potential for a good book. However, I had to stop listening to the audio after about an hour because I could just not stand the Narrator's rendition. Every character even if in a different accent had the same tone. It was hard to distinguish when different characters were speaking. Sorry Mr. Berry. The story line seemed interesting enough that I might actually buy the hard copy but Mr. Brick is not doing justice to you.