Mona Lisa's Secret

By: Phil Philips

Narrated by: Scott O'Dell

Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's Summary

Joey is the great-grandson of Vincenzo Peruggia, the man who stole the original Mona Lisa in 1911. Along with his girlfriend, Marie, an art connoisseur, he stumbles across his father's secret room, and finds himself staring at what he thinks is a replica of da Vinci's most famous masterpiece.

But it is no fake....

The Louvre has kept this secret for over 100 years, waiting for the original to come to light, and now they want it back at any cost. With Marie held hostage and the Louvre curator and his men hot on his trail, Joey is left to run for his life in an unfamiliar city, with the priceless Mona Lisa his only bargaining chip. While formulating a plan to get Marie back with the help from an unexpected quarter, Joey discovers hidden secrets within the painting, secrets which, if made public, could change the world forever.

In this elaborately plotted, fast-paced thriller, Phil Philips takes you on a roller-coaster ride through the streets of Paris and to the Jura mountains of Switzerland, to uncover a secret hidden for thousands of years.

©2016 Phil Philips (P)2017 Phil Philips

OK book, narrator was terrible

the story was fair, but the narrator should find other work. The guy can't do a french accent, and shouldn't try. I can't believe that anyone thought this was good enough to release. Someone really dropped the ball on this one.

Difficult to Get Through

The premise and storyline were good. The narration was terrible and I can’t believe they allowed that to go to production. The French accents were slow and forced like the characters were constipated and had to think about every single word, even at 1.6x speed. The accent for the female character made her sound like she was a whining teenager with everything she said. The characters kept getting captured, so every time it seemed like they had an upper hand I already knew they were going to blow it.

Narrator completely ruins the experience

Ridiculous voices take you out of the story. Bizarre attempt at accents that are so unbelievable. How did this pass quality control?

Captivated

I found work to do around the house just so I could listen to this story. It truly kept me wondering” what’s next?” I will definitely be listening to more from this author!

trying to be French speaking English

Lord, this was difficult to listen to. Everyone who had a French accent sounded like they were constipated. Every word was forced. It was painful.

Okay, not great

Interesting premise, but not that well developed. The first half is better than the second.

Of Little Interest

Kept trying to come back to the story but there was no compelling desire to "find out what happens" to the main characters including Mona Lisa. A bit boring.

Mona Lisa’s Secret

I was really enjoying the story line but just could not finish it because of the narrator. He made the characters sound as if they were on Valium.

i struggled to finish

i struggled to finish the audible book. seemed to crawl along at a snails pace.

Too fake

This is my first review but I really felt like I needed to get my frustration out. We only pay $15 for these tapes and it's worth it.

That said, the storyline builds you up and then nothing? The big secret that everybody is being killed to protect ends up being again, no big deal.

Narrator; if any French listeners are offended, they should be. This guys voice box must be made of steel! He makes every French character sound like they have a speech impediment and can't string more than two words together at a time. It is totally pathetic.

Unrealistic: for example, Joey gets the snot beat out of him by a trained comando many times only to be fine immediately after when he should be near dead.

Many things happen that are way too coincidentalor or just plain stupid. The bad guy head comando, gets a free helicopter ride from France to London. Half way there he figures out that he has been duped yet again. So instead of just saying "take me Back to France" he instead pulls a gun on the guy and makes him jump out? And later after getting hit with 50 arrows in the neck and chest, he still fights on and on.....with Joey who finds one of the arrows stuck in bad guys chest that is close to the guys heart. So Joey pushes the arrow in 3-4 inches through the guys heart! But this doesn't stop him either, are you kidding me!

All in all, I was still entertained in a comical way as long as I listened at 1.35 speed. So it's worth $15 but not $16

Decent yarn marred by narrator

Decent book, however struggled with the excruciating French accent. Thought the narrator could have dropped it at least when the French personae were talking to each other. Found myself wanting to stop the narration just to not to have to listen to another minute of bad French mimicry.