The Great Escape

The Partho Mystery Series, Book 3

By: Rajib Mukherjee

Narrated by: Shawn Goodman Jones

Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

A new strain of the virus, COVID-30, has brought the world to its knees. Amid escalating tensions between nations and a falling economy, finding the virus' true cause becomes essential in the race to find the vaccine. Dreadful memories of COVID-19 from the previous decade surge up in people's minds.

As the world struggles in the shackles of the deadly virus, an unforeseen situation emerges. Top billionaires in various parts of the world fall dead. When Betsy, his dear friend, suddenly disappears, and Tom, her husband, succumbs to a heart attack, Partho is unwittingly drawn into the most intriguing case of the century.

Partho makes a host of enemies when his team dig up Tom's grave in Cochin. What they find opens a can of worms. There was no corpse in the coffin!

CBI hands over the case to the FBI. Partho and team find themselves on a grave-digging mission, crossing the boundaries of nations. His investigation reveals that all the deaths were from similar symptoms. Cardiac arrest!

Who is stealing the corpses? To what end?

Partho realizes how deep the conspiracy runs when he discovers the link between the new strain of the virus and the mysterious missing corpses. The only way to unravel the truth is to face it head-on. Can Partho figure it out before it's too late? Find out in book three of the Partho Mystery series.

©2021 Rajib Mukherjee (P)2021 Rajib Mukherjee

Well done!

spec-fiction, India, missing-persons, detective, mystery, family, family-dynamics, friendship, due-diligence, romance, USA*****

Against the backdrop of the sudden deadly surge of Covid-30 requiring quarantines and more, Partho becomes involved in an interesting case while on a vacation cruise while his brother-in-law Dave finds that the woman he wants to marry is an FBI agent. Lots of suspense and red herrings in a scenario that is too familiar. Loved it!
Shawn Goodman Jones seems like a pretty good narrator, but this book would have been better with two male voice actors doing Partho and Dave (or print copy).
I won the audio in a giveaway, so I still win!

"Life can be neither created or destroyed."

2030. When Partho and his wife, Rhea, are invited to the all expenses paid 25th wedding anniversary of their billionaire friends Tom and Betsie they were delighted to attend, even if it did mean Partho dragging himself away from work. Around the world, the new and very virulent virus, Covid 30, is raging, deaths escalating and, curiously, several multi millionaires have also died suddenly from heart attacks. Meanwhile, Rhea's brother Dave might just have found a girlfriend.

The inclusion of the new pandemic, Covid 30, should give an immediacy to this story, but with no further convincing support for it's presence other than a single victim, it almost felt like an intrusive irrelevancy set up in the story for no real reason. The rest of the tale, however, is very intriguing although a somewhat unbelievable muddle of solution was disappointing. Much more enjoyable than the two previous books, however, possible because of the new narrator: Shawn Goodman Jones has a pleasing reading voice and takes both alternating first person chapters of Partho and brother-in-law, Dave. I was surprised to discover that Partho, with an investigative style similar to Sherlock Holmes, was relatively young: from previous stories I had assumed he must be at least in late middle age! It would have been improved, however, if two narrators had each taken one of the two story tellers as the voicing were too similar.

My thanks to the rights holder of The Great Escape who freely gifted me with a complimentary copy. It was an enjoyable book, although editing could have made it better. But fun to read and this new narrator made the listening pleasure much greater. At approximately four and a half hours this is a quick and interesting read.

Enjoyable - another great addition to the series

I’ve enjoyed reading the Partho Mystery Series, starting with Book 1, the Unconventional Investigator, and now trying this audible version.  As with others in the series, the action picks up fast, and is easy to get through. If you like a series that is fast-paced and laced with mystery, you should enjoy any of these books.

Fun book to listen to with good plot twists

The characters in this book work well, with decent dialogue, and with a stream of sudden events to string them along.
I found it engaging and a fun book to listen to. Probably the unexpected turn of events are the best parts.

not for me

I was given this review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. It wasn't a bad book I'm just not into covert spy novels, and this was book 3 I'd advised you listen to the first 2 books before this one so you know the characters, this one obviously just jumps into the story and doesn't tell you who is who.