Countdown to Midnight

Violet Darger FBI Mystery Thriller, Book 8

By: L.T. Vargus, Tim McBain

Narrated by: Natalie Naudus

By the time you read this, I’ll be dead, but what I’ve set into motion will only be beginning.

The first blast takes out an actor from a string of famous coffee commercials. A plain cardboard box in the mail blows when he opens it—pumps hot nails through his face.

So begins the series of mail bombs that beckons FBI profiler Violet Darger to New York.

The bomber's plan is meticulous—an ever-growing spectacle of gruesome violence meant to spread his cryptic message piece by piece. And the clock is ticking.

Starting at midnight tonight, a bomb will go off roughly every eight hours, and a target will be neutralized.

The bomber has left chunks of his journal throughout the city. These not only articulate his twisted message, they contain clues about the bombs.

Clues for names. Clues for places.

Everything law enforcement needs to locate and disarm one of the bombs is there...if they can find it in time.

It's a race against the clock.

Understanding the bomber's psychology could be the key to deciphering the codes and riddles, the key to saving lives.

Darger faces a threat on a scale unlike anything she's encountered so far. If she doesn't solve the clues in time, thousands will die.

Let the countdown begin.

The novels in the Violet Darger series can be listened to as stand-alones. Scroll up, and grab it now.

©2021 L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain (P)2022 L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain

Darger and Loshak take on a unique perpetrator

I first read Countdown to Midnight between September and October of 2021 and posted a review. Now 10 months later I have listened to the audiobook with Natalie Naudus’ excellent narration. Honestly, she brought Violet and Vic as well as the story to life. I have to say listening was such an excellent experience because while I remember the story there were parts that became clearer or revealed in listening instead of reading. I can’t recommend listening to this story enough. I have included my original review from reading the book below.

This latest in the Violet Darger series – Countdown to Midnight – is if not the best of the series, one of the best. The change in type of crime, the level of action and the variety of twists and turns these two expert storytellers have woven together keep the reader on the edge of their seat throughout the story. I have always really liked how Lex and Tim are able to paint such a vivid picture that sometimes I wonder if I haven’t just watched a movie in my mind – Countdown to Midnight is no different, in fact I think they have upped their game in this story. If you are a Violet Darger fan, then this is one to get and settle in for an evening’s worth of entertainment. If you aren’t familiar with Violet Darger, this would be a great story to introduce yourself to an awesome FBI profiler – it should also cause you to go back and read all the other stories so that you can experience what you have been missing. I received an Advance Reader copy and chose to provide my review.

The narrator is SO annoying!

If the Violet Darger books are going to continue to be narrated by Natalie Naudus, I'd advise nobody listen to it on Audible. Her volume changes constantly. It's hard to drive, do housework, do anything because my fingers had to be on the volume button on my IPOD. Don't these producers ever listen their books?

WAY TOO LONG!!

I love the Violet Darger books. I have every one but this one was not one of their best. I kept fast forwarding because there was just too much boring detail. Three chapters going through a tunnel and what she thought? The book had great potential if it was several chapters shorter, or more action over talk. The performance was good but it can only be as good as the book and that was disappointing. I doubt I will listen to that again, so I will probably return it, sadly.

Predictable but entertaining

This series seems mostly interested in sharing the inner life of serial killers. Probably the authors think their musings are in some way profound but I’m not getting that. I predicted some major plot points which was disappointing. They like to recycle villains and this one is no different. Darger is a butch detective who has physical confrontations with men and can run as fast as her male FBI colleagues. I don’t buy most of it. More cleverness and less brute force would be more believable. She’s brave but relies on elder men to show her how it’s done and dispense wisdom which is usually loopy. She also has macho habits like eating only fried food and drinking a six pack of beer when upset…kind of 2 dimensional instead of the requisite 3.