The Pieces of the Puzzle

By: Robert Stanek

Narrated by: uncredited

Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

With The Pieces of the Puzzle, Robert Stanek masterfully creates an intelligent thriller that weaves the excitement and intrigue of a sophisticated mystery with the fascinating secret world of international espionage. The leader of a special operations unit returns home after a mission gone terribly wrong to find himself a wanted man.

Through his former boss he discovers his wife and unborn child are in danger. He must return and cooperate to ensure their safety. Little does he know he is getting pulled deeper and deeper into a decades old conspiracy led by a clandestine group within the government.Soon, the former agent Scott Evers finds an unlikely ally and the duo must work together to unravel the scattered clues that will lead them to the mastermind behind everything that's happening.

©2005 Robert Stanek (P)2005 Reagent Press

Who is stuffing the ballot-box?

There is some obvious ballot-box stuffing going on here. First off, this book is definitely NOT a 5 star book. If you look through all the reviewers that rated this 5 stars, almost all of them rated other books by the same author as a 5 and never anything less.

Why is this not 5 stars?

1) The plot is very thin and jumps around. Events seem unrelated and unnecessary.
2) Characters are completely flat. There is little evidence of characters motivations or other mental processes.
3) While I believe that a novel should keep it?s vocabulary at a reasonable readability level, this books is at the 5th grade level.
4) Has nobody noticed that the chapters are in the wrong order? The plot is hard enough to follow without chapter 9 being stuck between chapters 4 and 5 (yes I double checked this).
5) As mentioned in many other reviews, the narrator read much to fast and runs right though multiple characters with no pause or changes in voice.

Of the 50+ books I have downloaded from Audible.com, this is by far the poorest quality audio book I have listed to

Terrible

This was the worst audio book that I have ever listened to. Very abrupt reading style and read much too fast. Storyline was terrible too. I have been pleased with pretty much every other audio book I have ever listened to, but this one prompted my first review. Too bad that was because this was so bad.

terrible narrator

narrator reads to fast and with terrible expression. makes listening hard. i could not either get into the story or enjoy the story because of the bad narration

It IS better than DaVinci Code

DaVinci Code didn't really resonate with me, I couldn't get into it. This however I get into it's fast and fun. If you are looking for entertainment this is it.

Everything DaVinci Code Should Have Been

Sometimes you read so many books that you consider to be good that you forget the feeling that overwhelms you when you read one that is truly wonderful. And then, when you find a wonderful one, you wonder what makes it so, what sets it apart from those others. I wasn't more than thirty or so minutes into *The Pieces of the Puzzle* when I started wondering that very thing.

And then I got to a certain chapter and realized why. In this case there are so many reasons. The most important one, however, is that it makes you feel. Strongly. I was reading the aforementioned chapter and it occurred to me that my stomach was tense, that I was grinding my teeth, that I hated a character so passionately that I could physically feel it. That this novel had roused such an emotion, well, suffice it to say, I hadn't felt that for quite some time with the novels I had been reading. I loved it.

The next component is one of equal importance. Stanek is admirably adept at handling language. His prose isn't overly descriptive but it is evocative and always right on. This novel is one even a discriminating "literary" reader could pick up and find him or herself awed by.

I have to say, I had been disappointed by some of the mystery novels recommended on this site before, but this one makes up for them all.

Save your time and money

This book has no plot, extremely disjointed, people enter the story are killed off and you wonder why. I was really disappointed because I have listened to other books by this author and found them entertaining. There is a lot of action in this story, but it makes no sense. I cannot explain why anyone would like this book, it is boring, and nonsensical, a complete waste of time.

narration is important

Based on glowing reviews I downloaded this book and started to listen, but found it impossible to continue because the narration sounds as if computer generated. The cadence was so robotic and emotionless it interfered with listening to the story, which many reviewers say is wonderful, but one reviewer posted a warning I should have heeded.

Rivals counting grains of Floridian sand

Ther are few readers whom I instantly dislike.
My nine year old daughter read with more expression and much better pacing when she was five. I felt as if I was listening to someone who was learning English in a very distant land. This audio book needs a competent reader. To follow the plot takes more energy that I care to exert. I rather count grains of sand on a Florida beach.

This has been my favorite Audible title yet.

I look for books that entertain as well as inform. In this story, I was looking for entertainment and got plenty of it. The time flew by and I could not wait to hear more of the story. A complex, well written novel that fits together in the end like a puzzle!

The narrator was quite interesting and kept the dialogue going well. The story itself was intriguing and controversial enough to make it very interesting. I am now looking for more from Robert Stanek.

Much better than Dan Brown's DaVinci Code

Robert Stanek's Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches have to be the sleeper hits of the year. They've been the #1 or close to #1 bestsellers on Audible all year long. Something I have never seen before.

Saw the bad reviews of this book coming as soon as a review mentioned one of his other books was worthy of an Audie what with Scott Brick fanboys running around trashing every popular book on this site not read by Brick while praising just about everything he narrates.

While comparisons of this book to Dan Brown's DaVinci Code are apt, Robert Stanek's is a better written, better told story. Not only are his puzzles much more real and believable, they are also very very timely what with all that's going on in the world.

Anyone that hasn't read this book or any of Stanek's others is doing themself a huge disservice. PUZZLE is better than Brown, better than Patterson, better than Evanovich, better than Cornwell.