Dark Heart

By: Tony Park

Narrated by: Richard Aspel

Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's Summary

Richard, Carmel and Liesl are an unlikely trio with a complex shared past. They met while working in Rwanda during the genocide. Now the three are back together, united both by a photograph and attempts on their lives. After receiving a summons from the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda, someone has tried to kill both Carmel and Richard. Could this be connected to the photograph they saw in Rwanda, or to the summons?

Embarking on a mission to find the answers, they are drawn into the violent and harrowing world of animal smuggling, a world more frightening then they ever could have predicted. It is not just animals that are being smuggled, but human organs from living donors. Soon, their lives are all on the line and only one person can help them.

©2012 Tony Park (P)2012 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

No where as good as his earlier books

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I loved Tony Park's early books ( I did a review of one before). However, his last two books have become some what formulaic in their storyline and characters. I guessed what was going to happen at the end because of knowledge of his previous style. This is really disappointing as I had thought he was going to be the modern day Wilbur Smith. I think he needs to go back to delivering a well-thought our idea rather than trying to churn out a book every year.

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

Rather predictable.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The narrator resorts to really stereotypical accents when he is doing a different accent. The Australian female is embarrassingly Aussie (I live here, so know how bad it is) and his South African Afrikaaner accent again is extreme.Also, being married to someone who grew up in Africa and with family still living there, I was really disappointed by the inaccurate pronunciation of many words and places (Oke, Nelspruit).

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

Maybe

Any additional comments?

The story was okay, but I hope he can get back to his best again.

Irritated by narrator

Really enjoyed the story. With such a large section of the book set in South Africa one would have thought there would be some effort to get SOME of the pronunciation correct. Some laughable and rest just irritating!! His English and Australian accents were good!! South African diabolical!!!

Good story.

Would you consider the audio edition of Dark Heart to be better than the print version?

I enjoyed the book, but was a bit put off by the narrator. Although he tries to speak with a South African accent for some of the characters, in some ways this was off-putting because many of his pronunciations were awful.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I liked all the main characters. They are all key to the story.

Did Richard Aspel do a good job differentiating each of the characters? How?

The characters were differentiated quite well, though occasionally he got the accents wrong for a couple of the characters.

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

It is quite an exciting book and I would have liked to be able to listen to it in one sitting.

Any additional comments?

Pity the narrator didn't research the pronunciations of the South African/Afrikaans words and place names before reading this story. I lived in South Africa so was very put off by these mispronunciations.

excellent

I have read most of Tony Parks books now. always good story lines with a twist. Narrator Richard Aspel really adds to the enjoyment of the books