Next of Kin

By: James Tucker

Narrated by: Christopher Lane

Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's Summary

A New Year's Eve celebration begins with the pop of a champagne cork - and ends with the bone-chilling screams of a killer's victims . Ten-year-old Ben Brook is the lone survivor of the brutal murder of his wealthy family at their upstate New York compound. But from the moment he evades death, Ben's life is in constant danger. Can NYPD detective Buddy Lock keep the boy safe from a killer intent on wiping out the entire Brook clan?

When two more massacres decimate the Brookses' ranks, Buddy's hunt narrows. But his challenges grow as power, money, and secret crimes from the family's past stand in the way. With Ben more and more at risk, Buddy steps closer to the edge, forcing a relentless killer to become more brazen, brutal, and cunning. Saving the boy will put all of Buddy's skills to the test...and risk the lives of everyone he loves.

©2017 James Tucker (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Great Excellent Loved It - Just Get It

Wow! What a good book this is! Once again I am astounded that this is a debut by an unknown author. In my opinion this is author has written the beginning of a potentially great series.
In this book there are four brothers. They own a company that GE would like to buy for an exorbitant amount of money. All four must agree but two hold out. First one family is slaughtered with an axe minus a 10 year old boy, Ben. In the killers second attempt to kill Ben, he kills the wife of the attorney who has temporary custody of Ben. Then another brother and his family.
The investigator, Buddy Lock decides to take Ben home with him to keep him safe. When Ben is left with Buddy's girlfriend they are attacked but get away.
In the course of the investigation Buddy learns that the family, originally from Germany, took advantage of Jews by purchasing priceless works of art for what amounted to theft. Is a survivor coming after the brothers and their families because of who they descended from ? Or does this have something to do with GE?
Meanwhile , the relationship between Buddy, his now fiancé Mei and Ben has become so close. They have unintentionally made each other their family.
There are a few twists throughout and the ending will knock your socks off!!
Christopher Lane does a fantastic job narrating, his delivery is spot on!
And with kindle unlimited I got this book for $1.99!!!!!
This book is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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Thank You.

39 of 39 people found this review helpful

Sins of the grandfather?

A brutal series of gruesome murders are quickly eliminating one the country’s wealthiest families. A 10 year old boy miraculously escapes the slaughter of his family and now must put his life in the hands of a NYC detective.

A couple of things kept me riveted to this book. The characters of the boy, detective and the detective’s girlfriend seemed extremely familiar and believable to me. Second, it takes great police work to solve a very unique mystery.

Definitely worth a credit, or if you are a Prime member it’s really cheap!

15 of 15 people found this review helpful

Incrediby wonderful first novel by James Tucker!!!

How good is this novel? I have 1500 suspense mystery/thrillers in my Audible library and have read thousands of others. Next of Kin is a good as any and far better than most. Michael Connelly's best is not better than Next of Kin, not is David Baldacci's. I could go through a list of the best authors of various sub-genres such as espionage thrillers, legal thrillers, modern detective mysteries, police procedures, medical mysteries, etc. and not find a better novel than Next of Kin which is the first novel by James Tucker. It is also the first novel in the Buddy Lock series.

What a great find! I found it by following and reading the reviews of Audible Listener Shelley of Raleigh NC. If you enjoy mystery/thriller novels you should be following Shelley because her reviews are the best source of information on novel of the genre.

James Tucker, a new author, has written very polished fast paced novel with unrelenting action and intense suspense, realistic characters, a plausible plot, and a great unexpected twist near the end. I have to go back 1997 and Vince Flynn's release of Term Limits to find a first novel by an author that enthused me as much.

The narrator is Christopher Lane. Lane does a great Job.

Just get this audio book and listen to it!

23 of 24 people found this review helpful

Took A Chance ~ Glad I did

I follow a few readers for their reviews and sometimes I am willing to risk a new author. Very glad they are good at reviews, Im a listener not a writer. SO, THANKS to all the people that review books.
I only (sadly) see this one book on Audible by James Tucker. I guess I need to check back for new releases.

I sure wish Audible would give us a favorite author page to make searches a little easier or go back to having the ability to discard some recommendations and keep others turned on.

I enjoyed the plot story line, the characters and the narration. The story moved along quickly, not a lot of useless descriptive information in the way a lot of books I've been listening to have begun adding (maybe to make the audible version longer?) or worse yet, music...
I bought kindle unlimited so I could get audible narration on most books for 1.99. This was one of those times. I listen while I work so I go through 3 or 4 books a week depending on length. This book had me listening outside of work which is rare.

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

A Good Detective Mystery

I enjoyed this novel... over the past several months, I've struggled to find an engaging novel. I was starting to think that I had burned myself out listening to novels, and, perhaps I needed to go back to virtually reading rather than listening. I was encountering awful narrators. A poor narrator can destroy a good story. This story is engaging with a good storyline and narrator. It doesn't have a lot of useless descriptive fluff.

The publisher's summary is a good description to get you started because this fast-paced story get going right out of the gate and the narrator's performance helps to pull you in immediately. As the publisher's summary says, this story keeps you guessing but the ending will shock your socks off.

Of the four Brooks' families, three of the families are slaughtered one after the other, but 10 year old Ben escapes and the killer is after him. Detective Buddy Lock is on the case and soon realizes why these families are being slaughtered and the killer will stop at nothing to kill Ben too. An engaging story....

Thanks to audible listeners Shelley of Raleigh, NC and Wayne of Matthews, NC, I found this interesting novel. I enjoy their recommendations in the mystery/thriller genre. Christopher Lane is one of my most favorite narrators and he does a superb job with this novel.

Recommend

13 of 14 people found this review helpful

Excellent

Such a great book! It’s been awhile since I had a book I couldn’t stop listening. Kept you from page one till the enf

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

Wow - Didn't see that coming

A friend in NY recommended this book to me and it was a great read (listen). A classic murder mystery /detective thriller. I predict a movie is in the works. Enjoy.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Great Story, Exceeded My Expectation!

This is the first book I've experienced by James Tucker. I'm so glad I give it a try. I was hooked from the first chapter and actually finished listening in one day.

I have high hopes there is a sequel in the works. The characters are well developed and I want to know what happens to them next so I was sad to finish the book. The quality of the audio is very good and the narration by Lane is fantastic.

Buddy is an excellent detective who goes the extra mile to save the life of a boy from a murderer who seems set on destroying every member of the boy's entire family and anyone standing in the way. Buddy and his girlfriend vow to keep the boy save but doing so proves harder than expected but also more rewarding than expected. I highly recommend this book if you enjoy this genre!

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Great book James Tucker

This book did a good job of developing characters that you want to continue to invest time in and kept me listening. What is next for Buddy and Mae?

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

So exciting!

probably the most exciting audio book ever! unpredictable...great writing...cant wait to read his next book!

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

This Tucker Doesn't Whet the Appetite

I really wanted to like Buddy Lock, both because I delight in finding new authors and the premise for him sounded interesting in Tucker’s debut novel. Sadly for me there were too many weaknesses in this to make it very enjoyable even though I’m normally happy to give authors plenty of creative license. The story opens with the brutal and gory murder of a family during a New year’s celebration and is certainly fast-paced throughout. If you can overlook the things that bothered me you may well enjoy it.

However, while I quite liked a lot about the Buddy character the way that he and his behaved was very shallowly slave to the plot. Buddy develops an undying fatherly love for a boy he spends scant hours with and while claiming that certain people meant everything to him he continually put them at obvious and unrealistic levels of risk. There is a lot of woodenness in the other characters too, his girlfriend asks “Is there any danger?” and believes Buddy when he says “no”. She then doesn’t bat an eyelid when he moves furniture to block the door to her apartment and gives a ten year old boy a lesson in the various dirty techniques involved in self-defence . . . We all draw the line at different points when it comes to the amount of realism we need in our books and I’m afraid for this kind of book Tucker crossed mine.

0 of 2 people found this review helpful