Shadow on the Trail

A Western Story

By: Zane Grey

Narrated by: Russell Bentley

Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's Summary

In the days of the frontier West, it was not unusual for desperadoes and fugitives from justice to seemingly disappear from the face of the earth. Shadow on the Trail by Zane Grey, one of the best-selling authors of all time, is the story of one such man who returned to reestablish himself in a law-abiding society.

In Texas, young bank robber Wade Holden, once the toughest, fastest trigger man in the notorious Simm Bell gang, makes a promise to his dying mentor that he will go straight. He is tired of shooting, riding, and fighting. All he wants now is to settle down on the ranch for a nice peaceful life. But with the Rangers on his tail, he struggles to find sanctuary. With the help of a young woman and her family, he attempts to turn his life around in Arizona.

©2019 Zane Grey (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Best story, forest reading!

I was intrigued by the story from start to finish. I consider this book to be one of Zane Grey’s best!
The reading performance was at Best hard to listen to. Words were miss-pronounced throughout, and inflections and perceptions of the reader were way off base in many instances. I kept wishing that I had the words in front of me so that I could turn down the volume.

Dishonor to Jesse Chisholm.

Chisholm was a short squat dark man, half Cherokee. He was an Indian trader famous for the trail he laid to service his multiple trading posts and for his role as a peacemaker. He never drove cattle and was not a rancher.

Poor Narration

The narrator was disappointing. There was a very artificial and distracting cadence. There was also an emphasis on unimportant words and phrases.

This detracted from a good story.

sounds like a robot is reading the story

liked the story. did not care for the narrator. it is like a robot red the story.

A classic western but narrator disappointing

I waited years for this book to be narrated, having been one of my favourites, and was very pleased when it became available, especially as I'm almost blind and can no longerread the print version. but what a disappointment! Bentley's narration is peculiar: He's fine with dialogue (which saved him from a one star rating) but the connecting narrative passages are delivered in a sing-song style with a downward pitch at the end of sentences and pauses are mostly in the wrong places. It was irritating and rendered some passages emotionally flat. I so like the story, I persisted to the end but please Audible, don't let Bentley loose on any more titles!

Good story, poor narration

The story is a good one but the narrator kept bringing me out of it. The reader pauses in the middle of sentences, almost as if he didn't understand the language. He mispronounces words sometimes.

Great story…

This is one of Zane Grey’s greatest novels but unfortunately the narration was terrible. I listened to it all but struggled to get through it. The pauses and inflections were everywhere and almost always at the wrong time. Almost like he wasn’t even paying attention to the story. His voices for certain characters was just wrong. Wades voice at times sounded like a dorky teenager instead of the hero of the story.

great story, painful narrator

the story is easy to get caught up in and enjoy! The narrator makes it hard to stay focused, gaps, odd tones and cadence followed by mispronounced common words makes it difficult to finish.

Narration almost ruins it

I agree with the reviewer who pointed out the total lack of understanding of cadence by this narrator. He seems totally ignorant of how punctuation is supposed to indicate what the writer intended. I’m sorry to be so negative about his efforts. To his credit his voices are really good. Id love the opportunity to show him how to read punctuation.

The story is, of course, excellent. Zane Grey wrote it so that’s not surprising. I’m not an American, but I’ve always loved westerns. To my mind he’s the greatest writer of western stories. He doesn’t rely on shoot outs and fights to fill the storyline instead of developing a plot.

Well narrated these books would be so much more enjoyable.

worst narration i've heard

I only made it 10 minutes. The reading was monotonous and difficult to follow. I love reading Zane Gray, but I can't listen to this.