Death Notice

A Novel

By: Zhou Haohui, Zac Haluza

Narrated by: Joel De La Fuente

Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

"Fiendishly inventive." (The Wall Street Journal)

Chengdu, China: The vibrant capital of Sichuan Province is suddenly held hostage when a shocking manifesto is released by an anonymous vigilante known as Eumenides. It is a bold declaration of war against a corrupt legal system, with Eumenides acting as judge and executioner.

The public starts nominating potential targets, and before long hundreds of names are added to his kill list. Eumenides' cunning game has only just begun. First, he publishes a “death notice” announcing his next target, the crimes for which the victim will be punished, and the date of the execution. The note is a deeply personal taunt to the police. Everyone knows who is going to die and when it's going to happen, but the police fail to stop the attack.

The 4/18 Task Force, an elite group of detectives and specialists, is assembled to catch Eumenides before he strikes again. In the process, they discover alarming connections to an 18-year-old cold case, and they find out that some members of the team have much to hide.

©2018 Zhou Haohui, Zac Haluza (P)2018 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Death Notice is a gritty, hard-hitting page turner set on the mean streets of a China you’ve never seen before. A first rate tale of criminal intrigue right up there with the best of Michael Connelly and Jo Nesbo...but with a tang all its own. Highly recommended!"(Christopher Reich, New York Times best-selling author of Rules of Deception)

"This procedural, the first novel in China's most popular suspense trilogy, boasts the rich cultural immersion, the bird's-eye view of procedural technique in an international police force, and the complex mysteries that have long driven the popularity of Scandinavian crime fiction." (Booklist)

"An elaborately plotted thriller that explores the limitations of justice." (Kirkus)

spell spellbinding suspense

narration superb love the story wondering what happened to the female psychologists though looking forward to the next book by this author thank you

Brilliant

this was AMAZING! The story, narration, length; PERFECT! I will definitely listen to it again!

Doesn't crossover well

The plot is that people being killed who are deemed to deserve to die Some super interesting devices are left dangling, and what we do learn has giant holes. The most interesting part is trying to figure out why this is such as blockbuster in China. It is just one thing after another until I didn't care any more.

Interesting and suspenseful but difficult to follow characters

This book is full of twists and turns you never see coming. It was tough to follow along in the beginning due to the names being hard to follow (they’re all Chinese in origin so it was hard to keep them straight due to the challenge in language cross over ). Stick with the story and you’ll be pulled in, it takes a while to get the characters in order but the story is worth listening to until the end.

Not worth sticking around for the Trilogy.

Story was ok but writing very average. I don’t know if that’s due to translation issues but some of the dialogue was just cringeworthy corny. And the narrator didn’t help that issue with some of his voices. I kind of felt cheated as it felt like it wasn’t enough of a story for a single book. No way I’m buying two more books for an average crime story with mediocre writing and below average narration.

Did. It translate well plus poor performance

In a nutshell, nope. The plot promised to be interesting but it failed miserably. Character development was thin and the characters cliched.
To add insult, the performance was bad. Characters simpered and whined. Main characters went from bullying to condescension in a flash?”, sometimes in mid sentence. I don’t know if it was a poor translation or poor writing. In any event, there are much better books out there.