Bite

The most gripping thriller you will ever read

By: Nick Louth

Narrated by: John Chancer, Lucy Price-Lewis

Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Tomorrow should be the greatest day of Erica Stroud-Jones' life. In just 24 hours this brilliant young scientist will present her secret work to a conference in Amsterdam - research that promises to revolutionise the battle against a deadly tropical disease. Millions of lives could be saved; a Nobel Prize beckons.

Arriving to watch her are sceptics and rivals, admirers and enemies. Erica's own eyes will be on sculptor Max Carver, her American new love, to whom she will dedicate her achievement.

Tomorrow never comes.

Erica vanishes during the night. Max, desperate, terrified, sets out to find her, descending into an underworld full of malice and cunning. But even he is shocked by the dark terror he finds in the heart of the woman he loves.

Discover the massive number-one best seller that thousands of readers have said is the most addictive, page-turning novel of the year.

©2007 Nick Louth (P)2015 Isis Audiobooks

I bit on "Bite"

I applaud the author for his title: Bite the most gripping thriller you will ever read. We all bit (no pun intended) and purchased the book, didn't we? All reviews of book are subjective, so it really doesn't matter what anyone thinks of a novel, you have to read it and decide for yourself. I wonder how many copies were sold based on the title alone?
Well, that's enough about that, let's talk about the story. It was a well written tale about a woman, Erica, who is at a scientific conference in Amsterdam and is about to announce that she has found the cure for malaria. On the eve of her taking the podium to talk about her thesis, her boyfriend, Max, a sculptor and former member of the Coast Guard, plans to propose. He has the ring in his pocket and hopes to ask her before her presentation. Alas, Erica comes up missing the night before she is scheduled to speak and it is up to Max to find her. Her laptop is stolen, leaving no trace of her work behind to collaborate her claim. Max does find her diary which chronicles the perils and horror she faced while being held hostage in Africa. Can Max find Erica before something horrible happens to her? Is there anything in her diary that will shed light on her disappearance? Read the book, all the questions will be answered.
This was not a great book. As a matter of fact, it was a so-so book. It went on for far too long, was far-fetched, a bit gruesome and plain silly in some places, but I still gave it a three star rating, because I was entertained and it was worthy of finishing. It started out really well and grabbed my attention and held it through about three quarters of the way through, but then it bogged down and was never able to regain it's momentum. The action at the end was Die Hard type stuff. It is not a waste of your time reading this, but the next time we all see a title that promises to be the best we have ever read, we might want to just move on.

John Chancer and Lucy Price-Lewis were outstanding with the delivery of the story

Tour de force of research: pretty good listen

To me, possibly the most important aspect of any audiobook is the narrator, I have my favourites (as does everyone), and this man isn't one of them. To be fair, it's his American accent that I can't hear with any joy; but he also uses his voice as if he's doing a radio play - too much acting. Narrators don't need to act: what they tell listeners through the writers' words provides the drama without need for augmentation.
Apart from that whinge, this is an absolutely astounding work of research: in fact I can't help thiink that Louth must have some amount of medical learning; or he wouldn't have even contemplated writing this novel.
It's very well constructed, with all its interweaving plot-lines. Having said that, I was never totally won over by the protagonist. I felt as if things fell into place far too easily for him - as if they did so without much from him by way of effort. This could be my predilection for crime novels, I suppose, and their linear progression of plot.
But ! - I did enjoy it. Certainly sufficiently to listen to the whole thing (while being amazed). :)

Interesting premise poorly executed

Narrators were both bad. The male voices had very little to distinguish them & the accents were dreadful. The female voice was so soft I had to change the volume every time she was speaking. The story was interesting initially but almost science fiction like eventually and the ending was not convincing. This is not a patch on the author’s subsequent work.

Terrible

If you like concentration camp stories, this is for you. If ,on the other hand you are looking for a medical thriller, leave this strictly alone. It’s full of graphic brutality with not much story and certainly no medical,biological content. The worst book I’ve struggled through in my memory !!!

Complex, educational, exciting great story

The amount of research for this book must have been phenomenal. I learnt a lot about mosquitos. There are a lot of characters that make up this fascinating story which is very original. The narration was superb. I enjoyed Nick Louth’s writing so much I will read more books of his. A great read

Disappointing

I have enjoyed the DCI Gillard series, so I was excited about this book. Don’t bother. The plot has potential, but the book totally fails to deliver. Random, chaotic, and completely fails to thrill

Slow

Really struggling to get into the story. the narration is flat and just turned it off

Interesting

Especially if you equate the malaria epidemic (which is what the book is about) with the coronavirus; quite scary.
Highlights the philosophy of large pharmaceutical companies - profit.

Good story but still..

This is a good story. But it's not gripping. Because there is far too much narration for my taste and too little action. Even the end, there is still a lot of explanation. Personally I do prefer British English. Didn't like the American accent of the reader.

great

loved it, but found this author looking for narrator, Lucy Price-Lewis. I found a whammy, ordering next book before finishing this oms. Not too intellectual for bedtime listening and both narrators are brill.

Another great story!

Reading this in April 2021, when lockdown was coming to a tentative end again, I thought this book had been written within the last year. to hear it was written more than a decade ago was mind blowing. The story is brilliant, and well narrated. I can't wait to read more from Nick Louth.

Boring, boring, boring !!!

I bought this book on the hype that it was "The most gripping thriller you will ever read". Well folks it certainly was not that. I gave up just over half way through as I was bored out of my mind as it was so dull. I have other books by Nick Louth which I thoroughly enjoyed, but this spent far too much time going into great detail about mosquitoes and malaria for me. Did not like the narrator much either which did not help. This won't put me off purchasing others in the present series I am reading at present but I definitely won't be buying any stand alone books by this author in the future.

So much effort for so little!

This story was disappointing in the writer had invested a lot of time and energy researching the science of his story, then let it down with an erratic storyline and thinly drawn characters.

I could only liken the characters to a comic collection of cliche’s, some were really embarrassing and almost all were inconsistent.

The threads were disjointed, the premise for some were weak or plain silly.

Nick Louth writes some good things but for me, this isn’t one of them.

He needs to have a chat to his editor and work out who is doing what when they work through a story.

Confusing

I found I had to keep going back a couple of chapters to work out what was going on and who was who. Not sure I ever understood the whole story