High Force

The DCI Ryan Mysteries, Book 5

By: LJ Ross

Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble

Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's Summary

Hell has unleashed a demon - and he's coming for you....

Detective Chief Inspector Ryan's worst nightmare has just become a reality. Notorious serial killer The Hacker has escaped prison and kidnapped one of his best detectives from her own home. His brutality is the stuff of legend - Ryan lost his sister and nearly his own life bringing the man to justice first time around. Can Ryan do it again to save his friend?

There's a nationwide manhunt underway but the trail has gone cold and fear spreads like a virus. Ryan and his team must find The Hacker before he takes another life - but are they too late?

The clock is ticking....

Murder and mystery are peppered with romance and humour in this fast-paced crime whodunit set amidst the spectacular Northumbrian landscape.

©2016 LJ Ross (P)2017 Audible, Ltd

Critic Reviews

"A literary phenomenon." ( Evening Chronicle)

DCI Ryan Mystery

I liked this audiobook because of the tension the author creates & how the characters have evolved since the 1st book in the series. The listener learns more about who DCI Ryan is & he is less starchy than in the previous books in the series. I would not recommend this story for anyone who is very sensitive to violence because of the nature of the murderer & the way he murders his victims. I especially like that the author creates women who are competent, intelligent, & strong (both physically & mentally). I think the narrator does a great job & reads as if he is actually watching what is happening, his voice heightening the tension & action. I really like British detective stories & have enjoyed this series.

Awesome read and Awesome narration..

So, 5th book in the series and they just get better and better but I hated it because book 4 was a cliffhanger and I read it 9/2/16 and had to wait all this time to read the next. That wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t read 50 or 60+ books in between then and now. That’s why I hate cliffhangers and I wouldn’t have read book 4 if I’d known it was one.

However, I’m glad I did read this. It was awesome. Although, Keir is just so sick and what he does to people is beyond gruesome. And I doubt it has to be described in such detail. Poor MacKenzie was his prisoner through the whole book and he just loved to play with her. He didn’t rape her or anything like that but every time you turned around he reminded her he could kill her any time he wanted to. And once he let her escape, only to be watching her from the roof with a rifle aimed at her. He loved his mind games.

Here’s my only problem with the book: A word was found on Beth’s palm that said “Invictus.” When Lowerson asks what it meant the BOOK said “unvanquished,” but the READER said “I remain.” And that happened 3 times. Then when “Maneo” was written in with the entrails of 2 victims in was READ as “unvanquished” but the BOOK said “I remain.” The whole thing was crazy and needs to be fixed.

As with every book I loved the secondary characters: Anna, Lowerson, Phillips, and MacKenzie. They were all terrific.

WOW! What an ending! I loved it! With 3 guns aimed you just don't know who it was that pulled the trigger, or if that all did at once. Spectacular ending.

There was no sex in this book but the romantic feelings between Ryan and Anna was so sweet. And the F-bomb was used 2 times.

As to the narrator: Jonathan Keeble was wonderful. His voices from book to book are exactly the same, Ryan’s was sexy as hell and Phillips’s was gruff and raspy and Lowerson sounded as young as he was supposed to and Keir Edwards sounded as crazy as he was supposed to be. And he read with great emotion, too. And the women sounded just as they should.

great book series

great narration and author, love the series, makes my one hour commute to work go much smoother and not as boring

On the edge of my seat

I’m glad this series picked up again. It had me on the edge of my seat. It was less sappy than the last one too. Looking forward to the next one to see if my suspicions (I won’t spoil it) are right about how this one ended.

Overly violent

Out of character with the prior books. Too much psychological and physical violence. Solving the case was over shadowed by the unnecessary violence. I do not recommend this book.

Narrating

The narration of this book was well done. He makes all the characters come alive.

Keep them coming

While I loved the story and characters, I felt the ending was a little off. I look forward to more of this series.

Recording volume

I enjoyed the book, but because the recorded volume was so low it made it really hard to hear.

another good one

I was worried that McKinsey wasn't gonna fight her way away from that maniac, I'm very happy that she found her inner bad ass at the end.
Jonathan Keeble should win an award for his outstanding story narration! he is awesome!!

tense and exciting

This is my favourite DCI Ryan story so far, has a real sense of urgency to it, gruesome in parts but not distasteful, as it doesn't linger in the gore , wraps the past with the present nicely. Really enjoyable. Anyone looking for a well told suspenseful murder mystery should not go past this one.

Wow, really enjoyed that!

Another really enjoyable murder hunt for Ryan and his team. This time it has a personal aspect for Ryan, and Phillips in particular.
LJ Ross really delivers with High Force. I'd rate it as in every of the best stories I've listened to for quite some time.
No need to listen to the Ryan Series in order a day they're standalone, though you may find the gist easier to follow if you do.
Really can't recommend a High Force enough.

Terrible writing but excellent narrator

It is fortunate that the narrator can breathe life into this corpse of a book as it makes bearable, even enjoyable, what would otherwise be a dull plod indeed. The writer invents decent enough plots for the genre but seems to want to explain everything as we meet it and never leaves anything to clarify itself as we go along. it reminds me of the old Skippy the Bush kangaroo series where some character would interpret a few tut-tuts with "What's that Skippy? John's fallen down a mine about two miles North of here as the crow flies, and although he's not conscious may have a broken leg which could induce internal bleeding and be life threatening? we'd better get going....". Actually I think Jonathan Keeble could probably make a better story out of something Skippy wrote than this. The embarrassing thing is I quite enjoyed this tripe and I'm now listening to another load of old rubbish by the same author. So Author 1 - Sarcastic Critic 0.

Really good detective yarn

Once again a compelling listen. Very solid series and top notch narrator. Perhaps the best of the first five I have heard so far.

Nail biting!

This book is almost impossible not to listen to in one sitting! It grabs you at once and wraps you in its web. It's a fabulous detective series Not to be missed.

Lucky to find this author when his first book in the DCI Ryan series was released by Audible. They are all stand alone novels but it makes it more enjoyable if you get in on the first novel Holy Island.

Good continuity

I liked the continuity of the characters we're familiar with and Mr Keeble's outstanding narration. And apt conclusion to the Hacker tale.

Note to the author, Invictus means unconquered and Maneo I remain. Not the other way around.

Excellent; simpler but compelling

This is a good follow up to the previous DCI Ryan trilogy, completing the story of The Hacker (no spoilers if you haven't heard it or read it yet)
It's a far simpler story than the previous trilogy, because there are no mysteries about who the 'baddie' is, and no strange quasi-religious groups to stretch credulity.
It's simple in that at the end of the last book The Hacker kidnapped Denise McKenzie, and this takes us through the next couple of weeks. The writing takes you into the heads of all the participants and keeps you on a knife edge.
I was disappointed that the book came out so long before the Audiobook, but if that was to wait until Jonathan Keeble was available, I have to concede it was a good decision. His narration is as excellent as the previous books and seems a flowing continuation.
Definitely recommend, and will be interested to see where Ryan and Phillips go from here.

Brilliant

Where does High Force rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

One of the best

What was one of the most memorable moments of High Force?

The last hour, I was on tenterhooks even though I had already read the book on my Kindle.

What about Jonathan Keeble’s performance did you like?

A really good narrator, I hope to listen to more of him in the near future

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

It gave me palpitations, followed by a huge cheer at the end!

Any additional comments?

I have enjoyed all the other books in the series, but I reckon this one tops the lot. I just wonder what the author will come up with next.

Fast paced and entertaining.

Had no idea really what to expect from this as I chose it based on the reviews never having heard of the author before. This is a great roller coaster of a story, fast and entertaining. Nothing deep or meaningful but a good yarn to keep me company while doing a boring job this week.

Lack Lustre

I found this book rather boring, the characters didn't seem to have any substance to them and there were some daft moments in the book - for instance, when the killer meets a young girl at a night club and says 'I'm a murder detective' and she says 'Wow!' Really? I doubt a murder detective would describe himself as that, he is more likely to say he's in the police, but for the response to be 'Wow' - well it suspended any belief I might have had in the tale.
The story itself was 'Nowt nor Summat' (as we are in Geordie land) and I just came away from it feeling it was a waste of time.

Totally caught up in the story line

Kept me listening all day for the ending ... DC Ryan a recent discovery for me and am really enjoying the series