The King of Lies

This book is one of the best books that I've listened to in my two+ years of membership with Audible. The plot is well developed, the reader is excellent, and the story draws you in to the point that you can't put the book down. Excellent book. Highly recommended.

This is a beautifully-written book. I live in North Carolina about four hours from Salisbury (Sols-berry) where this story takes place. John Hart has pinned small town society right to the mat. He writes in a metaphor-rich southern cadence and really puts the reader in the moment. The reader can literally "watch" the story because it is written so completely well.

The real gripe I have is that the company in charge of hiring a reader for this book must need a new talentscout. They made a terrible, terrible choice. Not only does the reader not have a Carolina accent, he doesn't have any kind of Southern accent at all. He reads aggressively, like a hard-nosed detective rather than a gentile southern lawyer with a near-broken spirit. I just can't believe the recorded reader missed the heart of the book so very completely.

I would highly recommend this book as a "must read" book, in both senses of the term.

It's a great mystery/thriller, wonderfully and achingly written, and for those readers who have lived in the south and are aware of the carved in white pillars class distinction, it is bang on the head of what that class separation is all about.

It's a very satisfying book and one I will definitely "read" with my own eyes next time.

I can't imagine what Recorded Books was thinking...Mickey Spillane reads Harper Lee. Sheesh.

I recently stumbled on Hart's latest book Last Child. LOVED IT TO DISTRACTION. So I went straight to Down River and though it was also fantastic, it didn't trump Last Child. This author is just getting better and better and I can't wait until his next offering.

Despite my need for more Hart, I almost didn't buy his first book: King of Lies because of the reviews whining about the narrator.
I was worried about all the purported lip smacking and swallowing by David Chandler.

I am glad I took the chance. Chandler is an excellent narrator. I think the problem lies with the production company. I guarantee you that Scott Sowers and, my personal favorite, Scott Brick, smacks occasionally in the audio booth too, but state-of-the-art editing software renders such distractions a thing of the past.

Bottom line, Chandler was pretty damn good and quite frankly, his purported "smacking" is not that bad. Ignore the negitive reviews and get this book. Just FYI. Recorded Books produced the King of Lies. Last Child was produced by McMillan Audio and Down River was offered up by Audio Renaissance . Critique the production company,not the narrator.

The plot's fine, but the writing is so staggeringly melodramatic--with long, cliched descriptions and forced language--and made worse by the overly dramatic reading! Wanted to scream several times. Stuck with it just to find out whether my own prediction of "whodunnit" turned out correct.

Mr. Hart definitely knows how to write a good story! Hooray for all us mystery lovers. Terrific plot, fully defined characters (some to like, some to love, and some to hate) and enough twists and turns to keep me guessing. When I find myself exclaiming "Oh, no!" or some such during the narration, I am really hooked. The main character, while flawed, was engaging and very likeable. I found myself smiling with him, dismayed when he stumbled and in the end, hated to say goodbye.

My narration standards are high. There are many books I would love to get, but I refuse to listen to what I consider a bad narrator more than once. David Chandler definitely goes on my "approved" list. I am from NC and appreciate David Chandler for not having a southern accent. The temptation for many narrators is to go over the top with the drawl, and it truly grates on my southern born and bred ears. The reading speed was excellent, and his voice is pleasant to hear. The narration never interfered with the story which, in my opinion, is the point. No regrets in using this credit!

I absolutely loved this book. It was so well written and suspenseful. The end was a complete surprise and the epilogue pulled together everything I wanted to know about the characters.

I hope this author writes another book soon. I'll be first in line to purchase it!

Oh, and the reader was excellent, too.

The quality of the story kept me listening to this book, in spite of the grating narration. It is truly pitiful that the producers could not have found someone with a semblance of a Southern accent to narrate this story set in Salisbury, NC. Besides that, I find the narrator's approach to the story unsuitable for the protagonist. It just doesn't fit the character.

The protagonist himself is a pathetic loser, unable to live his own life, unable to even think lucidly. Frankly, he's a jerk.

In spite of these criticisms, the book is well worth a listen.

I don't give many books five stars. Four stars maybe but this was a great listen. I really hope to be able to listen to many more books by this author. I read some of the other reviews (after listening, fortunately) and don't really get the complaints about the narrator who I thought was very good. I'm a big fan of whodunnits and love it when the author can keep you guessing up until the end. I have to admit I had a hunch who had done it toward the end but had not figured out all of the details and the unraveling at the end was very enjoyable after listening to such a long book. Not complaining about the length though. When a book is good you want it to be nice and long. And this one had enough plot twists and turns to keep it moving and keep my interest. Great listen!!!

When I downloaded this book, there appeared to be no reviews. Now there are 43. My web browser must have been acting up. In any case, I rushed back here to warn people off this book only to find all the other reviews and the two polarized camps. I fall into the "good plot tritely written" camp.

I kept thinking that it's as though the author was a painter who turned out a sparkling work only to keep labouring over it until it turned to mud on the canvas. At one point, he had a good book there, perhaps in an early draft, but he worked too hard at making it clever.

That being said, I would give the King of Lies the following rating: 4 Stars for the plot. It was intricate and compelling, and the only aspect that kept me reading it; minus 1 Star for groan-out-loud cliches and hackneyed phrasing masked as personal epiphanies and introspective wisdom; predictable, stereotypical, uni-dimentional characters: minus 1/2 Star; annoying, effete narration: minus 1/2 Star = 2 Stars.

On the positive side, I did like the way the main character dug a big hole for himself by his seemingly benign actions, which ended up driving the tight plot. Not being from the US, let alone the South, I can't comment on the accuracy of how the class issues of North Carolina are captured, but I do think the book would have been significantly better if a reader like Will Patton or Stephen Hoye had read it. They perhaps could have turned the plodding, monotonous narration into a humid Southern story full of genteel tension -- if in fact that's in the work to begin with. It's hard to tell.

All in all, if you value your credits skip this book and look into works by James Lee Burke or Ellmore Leonard.

As a former book reviewer I have read many books, but there are some that are really special. This is one of them. The plot is so carefully crafted, the characters so believable, and the writing so lucid that I found it hard to stop listening to this audiobook. A true thriller with an artistic touch. The dialogue, descriptions, and introspection of the central character just absorb you along the way until the shocking and unexpected ending. The narrator also does an excellent job of conveying the story. I can't wait for his next book to come out--maybe it'll be even better!