The Adversary

Chris Bruen, Book 1

By: Reece Hirsch

Narrated by: Benjamin L. Darcie

Length: 9 hrs

Publisher's Summary

Former DOJ cybercrimes prosecutor Chris Bruen walks into a dark apartment in Amsterdam to confront a hacker known as Black Vector. The hacker has stolen the source code for the world’s most ubiquitous operating system, which powers everything from personal computers to the NSA’s data centers. This should have been a routine assignment for Bruen, but instead of obtaining a confession, Bruen finds the hacker’s dead body and uncovers a hidden flash drive that contains the code for a remarkably sophisticated computer virus known as Lurker.

©2013 Reece Hirsch (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Pay close attention.

Interesting and lots of action. Lots of twists and turns to keep your attention.
Really enjoyed the stories as the action increased.

Good premise, execution lacking

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

The premise was good and characters. The narrator was good, his women's voices were not. The execution just made it hard to finish. I wouldn't recommend it. It was very predictable the whole way through.

If you’ve listened to books by Reece Hirsch before, how does this one compare?

This was the only one.

Which scene was your favorite?

There were some. Probably the scene where he saves the day.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Adversary?

Hard to say.

Any additional comments?

Predictable all the way through. The characters were good and the story was easy to follow.

Uneven, make sure you like the narration style.

This book has a good premise even though by now you've probably read similar stories so it's a bit predictable. The book felt uneven, some parts have a good serious thriller vibe but then other parts have dialogue and plot points that take silly turns bordering on childish.

The narrator does his best but his cadence and style contribute to the goofy sense of things. Some of the characters sound like stereotypes especially law enforcement agents. Female characters are not his strength and there's a childish-storyteller tone that got distracting pretty quickly.

Page turning seat of your pants ride.

I couldn't put this down . Even though I figured out who was most likely to have done it early on. I was invested in the chase. I liked the main characters. The dive into the hacker world was bonus.

I was hoping that just for once . . .

I was hoping that for once in a story like this the smart good guy would actually have involved either the NSA or FBI when they had actual information. This didn’t turn out to be one of those stories which made a good chunk of it painful to listen to. Especially when the bone was already tossed to him to do just that which made it seem even more aggressions when it didn’t happen and he went exploring on his own when he had good reason to contact the authorities. I would have rated this book much higher if it hadn’t gone down the bored troupe of loner trying to go it alone when he literally could have had the whole federal hover emend on his side at the beginning.

Narrator needs to brush up on his French.

Really good srory, but the narrator's pronunciation of French words is pretty bad. It almost caused me to stop listening. Two examples: "gendarme" has an "n" in it, and I think it was "Pont Neuf" he badly mangled. Doesn't anyone listen to these recordings before they're published?

I wasn't sure what to expect + this book was a pleasant surprise!

I'd never read anything from this author and thought 'Why not branch out?' I'm glad I did! The characters were well developed and there were plenty of twists and turns. I always enjoy reading/hearing about other places and the fact that this story takes place in several cities made it very entertaining. I'm planning on reading more books by this author, including the sequel.

Enjoyable Story + Listen

I enjoyed this cyber crime story and narration by Benjamin L Darcie. The characters are well explained and the twists of the cyber related crimes are easy to follow; there are so many twists in the story, I actually have to slow down to listen (I normally listen at 1.25x speed). I also like the ending and would read the Book 2 from Reece Hirsch in this series.

An Interesting Idea

What would have made The Adversary better?

There was a lack of suspense to the story. I knew almost at once what would happen next.

What could Reece Hirsch have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Concentrated more on the story line and less on technical terms

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Benjamin L. Darcie?

I enjoyed the narration.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disapointment

Any additional comments?

As I said an interesting idea but the book falls flat

enjoyed the story

The story flowed well and captivating while driving. I found this to be worth a credit.