Straight Shot

Tom Keeler, Book 1

By: Jack Lively

Narrated by: Jeff Harding

Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

They thought they could get away with murder, but then Keeler showed up.

Ex-Special Forces operator Tom Keeler is a rambling man. He’s just passing through the town of Alencourt, France, and in less than an hour, someone tries to kill him. Nice place, nice try. But it’s a case of mistaken identity, and they picked the wrong guy. The French police can’t be trusted, except for the beautiful Cecile Nazari. She finds out fast that keeping up with Keeler is a dangerous occupation. Because someone’s preying on the weak and unprotected. Someone murderous. But they never counted on coming up against a guy like Keeler.

©2020 Jack Lively (P)2021 W F Howes

A Jack Reacher look-a-like

This reminds me so much of the first JR novel, "Killing Floor". There are many similar plot and character points. It's not bad, it just doesn't develop the characters as fully as Lee Child did. The narrator falls into a sing-song pattern occasionally; perhaps due to the short sentences and terse narrative of the book. He does well with the women's voices, and, not knowing otherwise, his French pronunciation sounded good to me.

And, really, you know, we can't have too many Jack Reacher-type books.

Excellent!

If you like Jack Reacher, you will love this series. There are strange similarities, little nuggets, that will amuse a Jack Reacher fan. Overall, it was a great read, witty, gritty, with action in all the right places.

Worst narrator ever

I read the reviews and listened to the sample before purchasing this book, I should have heeded their warning. I forced myself to continue the book despite the narration. The story was OK, but simplistic and the narrator did improve slightly, but it was a painful process to get thru this book. Not sure why I persevered but I’m an optimist. I regret my decision.

Narrator just not for me.

I forced myself through this. I don’t know if it was the writing or just bad narration. The way the reader stretched out words in a monotone voice made this hard to power through. The strange part was the character voices were fine, but the general narration was just not for me. The reader had a habit of drawing out the last word in sentences, which was very irritating. “I walked down the streeeeeet. I sat in a chaaaaair”. I may try another book if a different narrator takes over.

second time listening, I dig the characters

I like the tempo and the characters. fun to listen to, I'm looking forward to re listening to the others in this series.

Not sure I will finish

Hopefully, I will slog through this as I paid for it. I find the narrator very monotone which makes it hard to get into the story which is going very slowly so far.

Not worth the time it takes to dowmload

Disappointing. Not worth the money or the time to listen to it
Wont be getting anymore on this series

Took a bit to get into

Took a bit to get into, but story ended up being great. French accent takes awhile to get used to.

Wait for it

The story and the characters were old school Lee Child. The back half of the performance is worth the wait. However, the first part of the voice actor’s performance was horrible. The second book is worth the the listen as well.

ghastly

Couldn't make it through the first chapter. If the author learns to use sentences longer than five words, and you can find a reader that isn't trying so hard to sound cynically macho, I might try again.

It's as good as Reacher

I have read every Jack Reacher. I loved them. this is just as good, helped by the reader, who also read Reacher, and uses the same way of reading it. But for the name of the leading man, it could welk have been Reacher. it's a bit of a slow start, so are some Reacher's, I want more.

Excellent listen if you are a fan of Jack Reacher

I mean this as a compliment, this is so close to Reacher that if you changed the name from Tom Keeler to Jack Reacher and juiced Keeler up a little, I wouldn't be able to tell that this wasn't written by Lee Child. I am a massive Reacher fan and have listened to (and read) all of the books in the series, and this is ridiculously close (in a good way). Keeler is like a slightly dialled down Reacher, and some of the writing is very good and also similar to Lee Child. I have to say that you could definitely do worse if you (like me) are desperately craving a Reacher fix and need something similar to listen to.

its Reacher in France!

Having read all of the Jack Reacher books, this was actually better than the last one I read! maybe it's helped by the narrator!

Poor copycat version of Jack Reacher series

This is Lee Child by numbers. Cynical ex-army vet, just retired, with intent to wander aimlessly, travelling very light, gets attacked and easily fights off three knife-wielding men before the end of the first chapter. He's having sex with a lusty woman police officer a couple of chapters later. His mother was French. Hmmm... see a pattern here? Reacher's mother was French too. Except it's not written as well as Lee Child used to write. It lacks pace, plot or, crucially, jeopardy. I didn't like or care about any of the characters. Jeff Harding did his best. But it was dull, dull, dull. I gave up in the end.

Out reachered!

Can’t deny the similarities but Tom Keeler is subtlety different. I love the way Jack Lively evolves the story. Simple set of circumstances to start with then it starts to gather pace and momentum as the clues make themselves known and you are enveloped in the story eager to hear what happens next. jL doesn’t reveal everything at once but strings you along on the journey and you’re never quite sure if you got the villain correct until well into the last quarter and it all comes together beautifully with a punch. As for Jeff Harding, I think he is one of the best narrators around - he could read the telephone book and I would settle in to listen.

Reacher Carbon Copy

Really enjoyable story,If you like Jack Reacher this is a blatant rip off of that series even down to the fact they're using the same narrator.Definitely worth a listen if you're missing your Jack Reacher fix.

Very Jack Reacher

very similar to the Jack reacher books but an excellent stand alone read/listen. Characterisations were brilliant

If you’ve liked Jack Reacher!

Thoroughly enjoyed it! Reminded me of the Jack reacher books, especially as read by Jeff Harding👍
Jeff Harding was what I put in my search bar, as I find he puts the effort in to the characters.
And after listening to all the Jack Reacher series read by him, I moved on to the Charlie Parker series read by him again, and just finished all 19, and can’t wait for the next Charlie Parker novel off John Connolly.
Off to listen to book two in the Tom Keeler series 😜

Jack Reacher In WitPro

It’s hard to not think of Jack Reacher there’s so many similarities with Tom Keeller it’s almost plagiarism, In saying that I enjoyed the story and after the last two Reacher books that were so poor I’ll take Tom Keeller and check out the next two books

Copycat

The narrator is not the only thing this book shares with Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series. It’s annoying that it appears to be a copy of someone else’s work, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth listening to.