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

not good

I do not know if Stanek narrated this himself to save money, but he read it as if he was being charged by the minute for studio time. Once he calmed down it was not as bad, but still not good. The story itself wasn not bad, but it was written like a formula, as if he had read a book on "how to write espionage". It seemed very poorly planned, and never really came together well. Things seemed to be left hanging, and the main character seemed to be the only one who knew what was going on, but the author never explained it to the reader...or his narration was just so distracting that I did not pick it up. Overall, I did not get anything out of this book, but I am not going to listen to it again to get what I missed. Hopefully if he is planning another installment (this being "A Scott Evers Thriller", I assume he is) he will get someone to read for him, and he will manage to complete a thought in his writing. I would not recommend this book.

first bad review

Wasn't thrilled with the plot and didn't like the narrator almost felt like he talked to fast can't put my finger on it. I am very easily entertained but can say i liked this book.

A must not listen...

There are readings and there are performances - this book was the former. The mono tone fast read was the same internal voice I use to read a newspaper and distracted me from what I think was a very good story. If you like the performance as much as the book - grab anything with Scott Brick!

Great reda, bad listen

The narrator sounds like a high schooler asked to read to the class: bad cadence, no inflection, hurried. The material itself seems very good, so I think I'm going to read this one, instead.

Mediocre

The story was good to average. The ending was flat. The reader however was simply awful! He read too fast and in a virtual monotone. A grade school reader has more pause and inflection than this reader. Perhaps that made the plot less enjoyable.

Good fiction

I downloaded this book after hearing everyone raving about it. I was suprised to hear so many people put so much stock in its story of crisis, covert opertions, and hidden agendas. I liked the story, it was good as long as it is kept in mind that it is just that, a story. The technology he talks about is obviously fake and made up, though I'm sure that there are people who believe it. There's no way any one could wirelessly tap into another person's cell phone or palm. And some of the background facts are just not true. One that comes to mind is that he talks about hidden frequencies in telephone conversations. I've never heard of such a thing, it can't be real. That was just one thing that kept bugging me. Anyway, I would recommend the book, just remember that it is fiction, not like so many people who thought that it was technologically accurate.

The Pieces of the Puzzle, by Stanek

Save your money! I listened to 2.5 hours of this, and I can't take anymore. The main character is flying all over the place, looking for who knows what. I feel like several chapters of the book were left out.
I don't like any of the characters, and I can't understand what they're doing.

Don't waste a good credit

I should have given the negative reviews more weight than the positive reviews before deciding to waste a book credit on this one. The story might have been a good one if the characters had been better developed and if the reader hadn't talked so fast that I might have been able to understand what the heck was going on. I don't think the reader stopped to take a breath for the whole book! It sounded like he couldn't wait until it was over. Consequently, it was difficult to determine who was who and who was saying what to whom.

A good book will make the listener feel that they personally know at least some of the characters and will cause you to share in their victories and feel the pain of their defeats. The character development by this author was so shallow that I really didn't care what happend to any of them. I kept expecting the book to get better, but by the third CD I gave up and downloaded Scott Turrows new book. It's like the difference between night and day. You should definately listen to the sample to see if you can handle the reader before taking a chance on this one.

Save your money!

Horrible! This is the first time I've ever felt this way about an Audible selection. If this were a movie I'd ask for my money back.

The plot is contrived, confusing and not very interesting. The reader.... Well, let's just say he hardly pauses for breath, and as for nuance and character - I've heard 1-800-The-Time
voices that do a better job.

Honestly, if I had the time to read this book I might have liked it, but the reader's style (or lack there-of) was so off-putting that I gave up after four painful chapters. So how do I really feel? This audio selection is not just bad, it stinks, BIG TIME!! Save your money for something better - almost anything else is, in my opinion.

Sorry, but Audible should have spotted (and prevented) this stinker.

Doesn't get much better

This book takes your imagination on a wild ride! The way Robert Stanek brings all of the little details together with simplicity and smoothness. The only negative that I would have to say is the story comes to an abrupt halt. I would still recommend this book to anybody, despite what genre they normally read. Fantastic job!