Cached Out

A Cliff Knowles Mystery

By: Russell Atkinson

Narrated by: Joe Hempel

Length: 14 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

Newly retired from the FBI and alone after the tragic death of his wife, Cliff Knowles takes up geocaching. While looking for a cache in the mountains, he comes across a human skeleton and reports it to the sheriff's office. Then a second body is found - a fresh corpse this time - right after Cliff found another geocache nearby. When it turns out the first remains are those of a fugitive he was supposed to arrest years earlier, he becomes a suspect in a multiple homicide investigation. He has no choice but to use his sleuthing skills to identify the mysterious cache owner, known only as Enigmal, and free himself from suspicion.

Cached Out is the second book in the popular Cliff Knowles Mysteries series. The author is a retired FBI agent. Many of his books are inspired by actual FBI cases.

©2012 Russell Atkinson (P)2015 Russell Atkinson

abundance of info and enthusiasm about geocaching

Cached Out is the story of a retired FBI agent named Cliff.

Cliff is really into a hobby called Geocaching. Geocaching is where one person will create a puzzle that leads to a hidden cache using co-ordinance on a GPRS,and then other people solve the puzzle to get the co-ordinance , then go out using their own GPRS’s and find the cache. When people find the cache, they get to log their initials on it and then they have bragging rights in their online community. A cache sounds like its basically a bunch of random stuff, and knowing what was in the box helps one prove they found it.

For those of you who don’t know (I sure didn’t), the difference between a GPS and a GPRS is that a GPS will give you directions to a place, but nothing else, while a GPRS will do that and also a bunch of other nifty stuff including showing you the latitude M and longitude of your location on earth. While engaging in his hobby, Cliff stumbles into a dead body and becomes a murder suspect.

Due to the abundance of info and enthusiasm about geocaching in this book, I strongly suspect the author has a geocaching hobby. I have to say, it does sound like a lot of fun.

The first half of the book is good but is a little redundant because it lays the groundwork about how the FBI eliminates suspects, and information about how geocaching works. This element was good, but I felt there was a bit too much of it, dragging the story out.

The second half of the book was fantastic, things picked up and all that plot building from the first half payed off. All that talk turned into action, action, action!

The narrator, Joe Hempel, did a good job. He has a good reading voice, clear and engaging, and he had one voice pitched a bit higher for women and another for men.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who thinks they would find a combination of how the FBI goes through the processes of suspect elimination, geocaching, and/or action interesting.

Audiobook provided for review by the narrator.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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Cached Out

Any additional comments?

I loved this book It is a crime novel with geocaching at the core.A well written and a truly enjoyable story. These are trails that I hike and cache on! I loved visualizing the action in all those familiar places. My only wish is that the caches were real (if not so hard) and that there will be a follow up with more caching adventure!

Suspense at its Finest

This story was incredible, it was a very long mystery with fascinating and intriguing characters. The story was easy to follow, even with having to put it down and pick it up a few fays later. I listen mostly in the car.
I just love the narrator's voice as he did a superb job with both women and men's voices as well as Spanish accents.
I can't say enough about how much I loved this whole audiobook and I will definitely look for more books by this talented author and narrator.

Wow! First geocaching mytery novel & a great one!

What made the experience of listening to Cached Out the most enjoyable?

Cached out is a story about Cliff Knowles, a young retired FBI agent who geocaches (finds "treasures" based on GPS coordinates) for fun and exercise and stumbles upon a serial killer after more than one body is found geocaching. ALong the way, we are introduced to lots of fun characters

What did you like best about this story?

I'm a geocacher myself, and I liked the way the book really highlighted the sport. In general, I loved a lot about this book. The characters were written well, the action and plot were contrived to the right realism level, and of course I love anything narrator Joe Hempel does!

Which scene was your favorite?

I really liked the scene where Cliff's love interest is dangerously suspended on a cliff and barely found by other geocachers. Suspenseful, and funny with the cliff dialog.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I did listen to this book in one sitting!

Any additional comments?

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

A great story from someone who knows his stuff

Where does Cached Out rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It was very good. The author, as an ex-FBI Special Agent can obviously talk about crime and solving them and this really shows in the story. Very entertaining as a story and also very interesting. I was not familiar with geocaching prior to the book so it was interesting to hear about and it sounds fun.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I really liked Cliff. A very likeable character that takes his fate into his own hands when implicated or at least held in suspicion over a death. He's just the right type of character to mix FBI or ex-FBI smarts with a personal reason for investigating the crime.

Which character – as performed by Joe Hempel – was your favorite?

I thought that Joe did a wonderful job on the narration. Very clear and easy to listen too and he did a slightly higher pitch for female characters than with male. My favourite character is the main character from both a narration and story perspective.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

The first half of the book had me interested in the geocaching elements as it goes into detail to set the plot up and explain the story. I was very intrigued by this. The second half of the book is then left open for pure plot/story development around the crimes and this is even better. So overall a great start, very interesting leading into an absolutely great book.

Any additional comments?

This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of AudiobookBlast dot com

Geocaching meets the FBI

Cached Out is the story of a retired FBI agent named Cliff.

Cliff is really into a hobby called Geocaching. Geocaching is where one person will create a puzzle that leads to a hidden cache using co-ordinance on a GPRS,and then other people solve the puzzle to get the co-ordinance , then go out using their own GPRS’s and find the cache. When people find the cache, they get to log their initials on it and then they have bragging rights in their online community. A cache sounds like its basically a bunch of random stuff, and knowing what was in the box helps one prove they found it.

For those of you who don’t know (I sure didn’t), the difference between a GPS and a GPRS is that a GPS will give you directions to a place, but nothing else, while a GPRS will do that and also a bunch of other nifty stuff including showing you the latitude M and longitude of your location on earth. While engaging in his hobby, Cliff stumbles into a dead body and becomes a murder suspect.
Due to the abundance of info and enthusiasm about geocaching in this book, I strongly suspect the author has a geocaching hobby. I have to say, it does sound like a lot of fun.

The first half of the book is good but is a little redundant because it lays the groundwork about how the FBI eliminates suspects, and information about how geocaching works. This element was good, but I felt there was a bit too much of it, dragging the story out.
The second half of the book was fantastic, things picked up and all that plot building from the first half payed off. All that talk turned into action, action, action!

The narrator, Joe Hempel, did a good job. He has a good reading voice, clear and engaging, and he had one voice pitched a bit higher for women and another for men.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who thinks they would find a combination of how the FBI goes through the processes of suspect elimination, geocaching, and/or action interesting

Amazing, Case Closed

I literally cannot adequately express how much I enjoyed this book. Each and every character felt unique and real. Upon finishing I hated saying goodbye to the world and characters, They had effortlessly endured themselves to me, almost like friends. It felt more like I was watching a movie, rather than reading a book. The author's real world experience shines through every word. Hempel's narration is clean and pleasant. He manages to stay perfectly professional while still easily conveying unique life into each character. In short, this author now has a devoted fan for life. Please support him so that more audiobooks may be produced from his work. This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of Audiobook Blast. However, I will be purchasing a copy.

geocaching mystery...Love it

Any additional comments?

I am a huge fan of geocaching. So this book had my attention from the start. Loved the mystery an all it took to solve it. This is long book but very enjoyable to listen to. If you wanna be taken on a journey through the world of an Ex-FBI agent an the wonderful world of geocaching then this is the book you have been looking for.

Cached Out

I enjoyed this book very much. Joe Hempel did a great job of narrating the story. I know very little about geo caching but am interested in trying it after reading this book. I also loved the fact that it takes place in my hometown. It's so nice to be able to picture the places mentioned. I would recommend listening to this book.

Not too bad.

Would you try another book from Russell Atkinson and/or Joe Hempel?

Yes I would.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

It was the person I thought, but they weren't who I thought they were.

What does Joe Hempel bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The various characters personalities.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Hmm...yes I probably would.

Any additional comments?

This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of Audiobook Blast.

<br />Giving It a Favorite Point

This was my first book in the series and my first from Audible UK. Won it from the UK Geocaching Podcast. Despite the subject matter, I probably would not have picked it up otherwise. I actually very much enjoyed it and will probably check the rest of the books at some point.

Thanks and Happy Trails!

"Solving mysteries, investigating crimes ..."

What made the experience of listening to Cached Out the most enjoyable?

Geocaching was something entirely new to me. The reader can enter into the location searches vicariously by trying to decipher the cryptic clues given in full and so match their solutions against the skills of the protagonists.

Any additional comments?

Retired after 25 successful years with the FBI, Clifford Knowles is in the desert, pursuing a hidden geocach site when he finds a skull, quickly followed by an old skeleton. With no phone signal, he bikes back to the nearest Rangers office to report it to a somewhat hostile officer. Turns out, the ten years old skeleton was that of a known drugs dealer who had disappeared around the time of an FBI raid in which Knowles himself had taken part. He immediately comes under suspicion, even more so when other bodies, also at geocach sites turn up. But these are much more recent. With no other obvious suspects, Knowles needs all of his investigative powers, and the help of a few friends, to prove his innocence.

This is a fairly long book, filled with dramatic twists and turns, adventures including the battle for life against a most unusual aggressor, and the dangers of being in hidden locations without the ability to summon assistance by phone. The characterisations of the numerous protagonists are good, and the detail of the geocaching tracking is both fascinating and full of danger. Long, yes, but never once boring, especially for puzzle solvers.

Throughout it all, Joe Hempel does an outstanding job, really becoming the main protagonist, Knowles, as well as expertly voicing everyone else in a clear and identifiable manner. His easy to listen to narration adds to the tensions as Cliff tries to find an alternative suspect and so prove, if not his innocence, at least another person of interest. He carries the whole story effortlessly to maintain the underlying interest to the very last words.

My profound thanks to the rights holder from whom I received the gift of Cached Out, via Audiobook Boom. As well as thoroughly enjoying the story, I have had a glimpse into a world, that of geocaching, previously unknown to me. Prior to reading this book, I had never heard of geocaching. It sounds such fun - Sadly, I am no longer in a position to take part myself but I received such vicarious pleasure in the exploits here presented I will certainly be looking into it further. A great investigative adventure with a twist that I can happily recommend wholeheartedly.