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

Ok...

I thought it was ok, and got used to the narrator. I would have given it 2.5 stars, but rounded down because of higher expectations.

Not good, wish I had paid attention to the reviews

Perhaps the book is OK, but the narration is terrible. A total waste of money. I should have been more careful.

The worst reader there is...

He just destroyed this book.I had started this book at my daughters house and didn't get to the end.I bought this audio version and boy am I disapointed! Its the only book I just couldn;t suffer through.The reader Whines and sounds sarcastic all the time ! Everyone sounds the same so it sounds like hes talking to his self most of the time.What a waste of a good book,so buy the actual book,this was really bad !!

Not Suitable for Audio

The rapid switching every several paragraphs among parallel but related parts of the story make it at times incomprehensible for audio. Besides, the story was weak and foolish and the mulitple accents spilled over across different characters.

Read, don't listen to this book

I must agree with the other reviewers. Scott Brick's narration was awful, alternating between laughable, distracting, and annoying. I needed to turn the book off a number of times b/c I was concentrating on the narration style as oppposed to the storyline. I've often listened to other books he has narrated and never found him to be THIS aggravating. He's now on my do-not-buy narrator list with Barbara Rosenberg who sounds like she's smoking and eating peanut butter sandwiches while reading.

The Paris Vendetta

This novel lacks pace and is really disappointing.I am a Scott Brick fan but even he is unable to breathe life into this plodder. I grow weary of story lines which take 5 hours to develop and even then fail to deliver on their promise of intrigue.

An almost painful listen

The Paris Vendetta is a typical Cotton Malone thriller written in Steve Berry's careful but meandering style. If you like his other works, you'll like this one. The narrator, however, was awful. His false dramatic tension was overused for even the most mundane passages, making it difficult for me to get into the story. His accents were not well done, and it was VERY difficult to tell the two main adult-men characters (Cotton and Sam) from each other. I finished it, but it wasn't easy and I'll never buy a Scott Brick production again.

Mediocre At Best

I'm a great fan of Steve Berry, and of the performances of Scott Brick. This book misses the mark for both of them. Scott Brick does not seem to be into the story. Returning book.

Scott Brick ruins the Paris Vendetta

I have listened to perhaps 200 books over the past few years, and I've never had to stop and delete before. I tried and tried but didn't get past the first 45 minutes. Scott Brick is horrible. The same unbelievably annoying lilt to each sentence. Awful attempts at a French accent, and failure to let the story speak for itself. I spend time before selecting each book and was looking forward to a new author and an interesting story. Disappointing. Would like to have my credit restored, and will NEVER download another Scott Brick narration!

Boring

Perhaps the worst read book I have ever heard - at least for the first part. I gave up on both the narrator and the story after that