The Good Bad Guys: Series Omnibus

By: Morgan Quick

Narrated by: Adam Verner

Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's Summary

Keegan's Point (Book One)

Yesterday 12-year-old Charlie Parker would have given almost anything to see Keegan's Point, the island estate built by the reclusive billionaire Marcus Keegan. Keegan died the same year Charlie was born. Keegan's body and 20 passports were the only things removed from the island - leaving a mystery and the unanswered question, who was Marcus Keegan?

Nowhere, NJ (Book Two)

Fourteen-year-old Matty Dunmore and his gang live in Nowhere, NJ, and their world of mobsters and crooked cops is about to be turned on its head. When Matty - a runner for the local Mob boss, Mr. Hill - is attacked and robbed during a delivery, he soon discovers the package he was carrying wasn't the only one taken. The boys are told to keep watch for anything suspicious, but after the death of a higher-up in the organization, their surveillance is discovered by one of the traitors. Now the friends must make a choice - tell Mr. Hill and risk the safety of their families or keep quiet and live.

From the author of the Devil's Assistant series, Keegan's Point and Nowhere, NJ are the start of a new adventure series where not all the bad guys are bad, where you just might find yourself rooting for both the bad guys and the good guys as they work together to survive.

©2017 HD Smith (P)2017 Heather Smith

YA Mystery

•The Mystery of Keegan’s Point•
was well written with a champion pre-teenager, Charlie. Charlie finds himself solving the mystery with a “good bad guy” and resolves his own issues with bullying at the end of the story. Charlie, being a typical child, lies to him mom, but ‘fesses up and takes his punishment. I liked that all the loose ends are tied up neatly, and not in a condescending fashion.
I enjoy the nostalgia of YA mysteries, because they were not centered around body counts and killing the entire town or scaring off tourists by the murder rate. This was a wonderful book that I wish was written a decade ago, so I could have read it with my children.
The narrator has excellent voice acting skills was a very good match for the book and helped the flow.

•Nowhere, NJ•
The second book in the series was a notch above with unwitnessed deaths and a kidnapping. Not quite as innocent at Keegan’s Point but still with a YA atmosphere.

The story bounces from events in 1985 and 2015. It leads the listener to draw conclusions the protagonist is oblivious to, until the conclusion. A myriad of characters are introduced and with the variations of their names vs childhood nicknames, it may take the listener a tad longer to catch on to the parallel.

At the end, I felt the offscreen deaths did not justify the means and would have preferred a better justice, as I had expected from the first book. For lack if creativity to neatly wrap up the loose ends, four stars for this book in the series.

I liked this narrator for this series and will seek other works from him.