Black Bird

By: James Keene, Hillel Levin

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

James Keene had it all: cars, girls, houses up and down the Gold Coast. But behind his well-connected star athlete façade was a money-obsessed drug dealer desperate to make the big score to get him out of the business. When he was sentenced to prison, it seemed the only lessons he would learn would be about navigating convict society. Instead, he was offered a chance to regain his freedom in return for going undercover in the nation’s highest security prison for the criminally insane. His task: to get friendly with Larry Hall, a mentally unbalanced serial rapist and murderer, and obtain his confession. For nearly a year, Keene walked the line between the part he played and the self he hoped to redeem, all the while dodging punches from deranged inmates, currying favor with imprisoned Mafia dons, and staying beneath the radar of Larry’s oddly protective psychiatrist.

©2010 James Keene with Hillel Levin (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Runs on and takes things out of order

It was a good listen but some could have been left out and it would have been better. The order is all over the place, at times I got lost wondering what happened, which it is picked up later on. I did find it interesting but is not worth listening to a second time.

I thought the narrator did a great job, at times he did put in a few character voices which were nice. There are no background noise, no volume changes and no repeating of words. He has a very pleasant voice

TRUE STORY

Great true life story with redemption for a man that went to jail. Well written and the narrator was very good!

I grew up in Gas City

I randomly picked this book today, and had zero idea is was set in my hometown. I have family that works for the Grant County sheriffs department and remembers this all too well. Well done!

awesome book

loved this. as a true crime fanatic this was hard to put down. performance was a little robotic but not distracting.

Well rounded story-telling

The performance was really good. The story is quite fascinating and while many reviews are critical that there isn’t enough between Keene and Hall or that the story jumps around, I thought the authors did a good job providing good backgrounds on both main characters, history lessons into the MCFP, the various investigations, victims and the efforts as of the book publication to find the missing women.

Great story!

Saw the show first and that was amazing and of course the book was just as amazing!

Good story

Soild story! I appreciate the building of the characters! Little slow in parts but overall great plot

In With The Devil

I think this is an interesting book. Being based on a true story showed to me what our poor police has to deal with.

Great mid-west story.

Growing up in central Illinois during that time makes this book even better. You always hear bits and pieces of information as you get older and this places everything in a well told narrative.

Really interesting true crime

I really enjoyed this story, although I had to wonder if the author wasn’t building himself up a bit by saying how he kept beating everyone else’s butts in jail. But, hey, maybe he did? It made for good reading anyways.