Liars & Thieves

By: Stephen Coonts

Narrated by: Guerin Barry

Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's Summary

Tommy Carmellini - who dazzled thriller fans in Stephen Coonts' Cubaand Liberty - is the CIA's top man for jobs that require extreme stealth, breaking-and-entering skills, and split-second, sometimes lethal, decisions.

In Liars & Thieves, he's sent to post guard duty at a farmhouse in Virginia's remote Blue Ridge Mountains, where top government operatives are debriefing a star defector: the ultimate KGB insider, a man with records on every operation and every dirty trick the shadowy intelligence agency has ever run, from Lenin to Putin.

Carmellini arrives to find the guards shot dead, and a ruthless team of commandos - American commandos - slaughtering everyone in sight, then setting the house on fire. He escapes a hail of bullets and a deadly mountain car chase with what seems to be the sole survivor, a beautiful and mysterious translator who steals his car and leaves him for dead at the first chance.

What secrets did the defector know? Who would have killed to prevent him from talking? And how could a hit team act so fast, so efficiently, and so murderously without intimate, inside knowledge of the debriefing?

Smart money says someone in the U.S. government is behind the massacre and is now after Carmellini. And that begs the biggest question of all: in a world where nothing is as it seems and no one is who he pretends to be, who can Carmellini trust?

Finding out will be terrifying. The answer may be deadly.

©2004 Stephen Coonts (P)2004 Brilliance Audio

Critic Reviews

"Tommy is smart, brave, skilled and possessed of enough self-deprecating, wisecracking wit to endear him to readers. Jake Grafton makes an appearance to help save the day, but Tommy proves himself more than capable of saving the world on his own." ( Publishers Weekly)
"Barry is adept at accents and offbeat characters, and the story gives him a lot to work with." ( AudioFile)

Fast Paced - Good Read!

Right from the first few minutes this book held my attention. The story always moved along. CIA thief Tommy Carmellini is quite an interesting character. Sometime I had to laugh a the character...

The plot although pure fiction is based on a historical defection.

If you like Thommy Cormellini character, you will probably like books by Lee Child (main character Jack Reacher) and books by Vince Flynn (character Mitch Rapp, et al.).

Great Thriller . . . Who are the Bad Guys???

Kept me guessing . . . this is the kind of book that keeps you listening until the very end . . . government spies . . . KGB . . . CIA . . . who can you trust??? Stephen Coonts is an excellent writer, the narration is great . . . and you thought the cold war was over??? Think again . . .

Good Listen

I like the Tommy Carmelini character in these books. Some say that Jake Grafton should be front & center. Not ever having read one where Grafton was THE character, I really enjoyed this. I love Carmelini's sarcasm and sense of humor.

Great listen

I admit that I had no clue where this story was going. I thought the narrator did a great job, and the story itself moved along nicely.

Great fun read

Really enjoyed this...nice humor, twisted plot lines, good characters. Reader has excellent command of voices and conveys the humor and drama in excellent fashion (though wish he would pause briefly at "change of scene!" Carmellini is a very promising character...

This Review Needs a Title...So, I

Tommy Carmellini series is a spin-off from Coonts' Jake Grafton novels. In this, the first book of the series, the two interact to solve a plot at the highest levels of US government. There is action galore and bodies everywhere. The technology is good and plays a little bit on the plot. The political interaction leads one into people close to POTUS, with dire consequences. The characters are easily understood and fun to wonder about. Where's book #2?

Real good book.

1st time listening to this author. I bought the book on sale. was pleasantly surprised. can't wait to listen to the next one.

Was a good book for the start of a series

What made the experience of listening to Liars & Thieves the most enjoyable?

The Voice actor was really good, and fit the character well. The story was very catchy and made me want to listen more to see what happened next.

Would you recommend Liars & Thieves to your friends? Why or why not?

I would recommend Liars & Thieves. Its a really good book to cut your teeth on if it's your first good in the Genre.

Which character – as performed by Guerin Barry – was your favorite?

The Main Char. by far.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

There were too many good points to pick just one.

Any additional comments?

I really like this book, and would have loved it if they used the same voice actor for the second book as well.

Great political/espionage thriller!

Liars & Thieves in Book 1 in the Tommy Carmellini series, but of course Tommy Carmellini is a major character in many of the novels in the Jake Grafton series. And Jake Grafton plays a major role in this novel. The mystery of who are the bad guys is not resolved until near the end of Liars & Thieves. Author Stephen Coonts does a nice job building suspense while keeping the action and fun going with this novel.

Brain Candy

Note: This review is being written so I can rate the performance and story via the star system above.

A reasonable beach read when one is trying to occupy time. A fun yarn but not many take home points.

Having said that, some parallels between the Mr. Trump's reign and the book's presidency came to mind. :-(