The Big Fear

Hollow City, Book 1

By: Andrew Case

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

It's August in New York, and the steaming garbage littering the streets isn't the only thing that stinks.

Civilian investigator Leonard Mitchell can keep his job as the new head of the Department to Investigate Misconduct and Corruption only by successfully prosecuting veteran cop Ralph Mulino.

Mulino shot an armed man on a dark night; he didn't know the man was a fellow cop. Now, to keep his badge and his freedom, he has to make his case to the investigator. But the gun Mulino saw in his victim's hand has disappeared.

As Mitchell digs deeper into Mulino's claim, it becomes clear that the "misconduct and corruption" infecting New York City go far beyond the actions of one allegedly dirty cop. Murder and sabotage force Mulino and Mitchell into an uneasy partnership to uncover the truth and protect the city they are both sworn to serve.

Assuming, of course, they can stay alive...

©2016 Andrew Case (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Very peculiar narration

The story was interesting and adequately entertaining. The narration was weird. The narrator changed accents in the middle of sentences. Although billed on his Bio as American and able to do numerous accents, he jumped from some variation of bland American to weird Kiwi to strange upper crust to mangled American southern accents, seemingly with no plan. Nice voice, however.

Police Thriller in NYC

Andrew Case is added to my list of better than average authors of exciting stories. What sta6rts out as a typical police story is wrapped around an unusual plot and carried to the end with twists and surprises. It keeps moving fast and ends too quickly. The ending has a few twists tgat are not smoothly tied at the end. i look forward to another Andrew Case book.

Case on the Case

In Andrew Case's first novel, The Big Fear, New York City has descended back in the crime-plagued, fear-ridden state of Gotham City, or more realistically, New York of the 1970s and 80s, where you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys and the garbage is piling up in the streets. When a police detective inadvertently shoots another officer, a civilian investigator is tasked with figuring out what exactly happened.

Andrew Case brings two things to the table that make The Big Fear a different kind of crime thriller. He is an attorney himself who spent a decade as a civilian investigator into police corruption working for New York's CCRB (Civilian Complaint Review Board). And though he is a first time novelist, he has written a half dozen produced plays.

So 1) he really knows what he's talking about, which naturally enhances the credibility of his work, and 2) he knows how to write about it -- and in a manner that is not necessarily consistent with mainstream crime fiction. The fiction format gives him more room to get into description and explanation of his setting and the internal monologue of his characters. My only qualm is that the reveals come too early and are not well masked.

I got this book as part of the Amazon Prime Kindle First program, where you get to choose one free newly published E-book a month, with the option to buy a deeply discounted Audible companion. This one makes me 2-for-2 in choosing well. So I'm going to go back to this well again, an excellent way to introduce myself to new authors.

The Big Fear

I didn't really like the book! It began with a dark mysterious death of a cop on a large boat in New York harbor! I was on board! But the more the story progressed, the less engaged I became. I think a lot of it was due to the reader. He isn't very good at creating character voices.

Pathetic! Boring!!

The Big Fear would be overpriced if it were given away. It is not worth the time.

First chapter okay; heavy Jersey accent seemed fake

Horrible narration. Horrible plot! The accent of the narrated b!ew it for. Could not enjoy when sneered and whined. Totally distracting

way too much unnecessary info. get to the point. w

why is all this wordy info necessary. i like a book that moves on with the story. wordy, wordy, wordy. mostly rambling on.

Boring. Way too many details. Was a drag.

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

I bought the Kindle version initially. That was a drag so I bought the audible version so I could somehow complete the book. It too was a drag, but at least I had to only listen to it. The narrator was good. His voices and tone matched the mood of the book. Doesn't make the book any better, but at least thanks to the narrator I managed to finish it.

I didn't care what happened to the characters or why stuff was happening to them. Just wanted to get the book done with!

What could Andrew Case have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Less details