The Green Line

By: E. C. Diskin

Narrated by: Jeff Cummings

Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's Summary

Abby Donovan’s decade-long dream of partnership at her prestigious Chicago law firm is just months from fruition. But it’s all about to change because of one misstep. One step onto a late-night train headed in the wrong direction. Headed into Chicago’s west side, where gangs and violence and drugs fill the streets. In this engaging debut, E.C. Diskin, a former Chicago attorney, takes us on a fast-paced thrill ride with a believable and flawed heroine. Listeners will relate to her, fear for her, and get a glimpse inside Chicago’s best and worst. From the roughest streets of the west side to the estates of the North Shore, Abby Donovan and the unexpected villains of The Green Line will keep you listening late into the night as they shine light on a little-known, often-used, and widely-abused legal maneuver.

©2013 E.C. Diskin (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved

Interesting narration!

Narrator Jeff Cummings tries to reflect the emotions, voices, and accents of all of the many characters who have dialog. He does a horrible job which irritated me for the first hour. But then it became funny and added to my enjoyment of the book.

The Green Line is an excellent legal thriller. The protagonist is a lawyer but all of the action is outside the courtroom. I would definitely read other books by this author.

Well Written Book

This was a well crafted legal thriller that swept me along for a very entertaining ride. The pace cranks up in the second half of the book which I read in one final sitting. Like some other reviewers I also have a background in law and could relate to the big law firm scene and the long all consuming hours of work - although, I hasten to add, that's never been my own path in the law. The main character was very nicely drawn with a depth and believably that helped drive the plot and the growing sense of horror the story evoked as her life begins to crumble around her.

Jeff Cummings was very average with the delivery of the story. He tended to over act each character making them sound cartoonish it was very distracting. When he used his own voice the narration was much better.

I couldn't listen to this...

Would you try another book from E. C. Diskin and/or Jeff Cummings?

Yes...my review is purely on the narration of the audiobook.

Would you be willing to try another book from E. C. Diskin? Why or why not?

Yes...see above.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Jeff Cummings?

Annoying. If the narrators voice doesn't work for me, I just can't listen.

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

Needs a different narrarator.

enjoyable story

Narration horrible. Southern accent for female character sounded like Dustin Hoffman's Tootsie. VERY DISTRACTING

Where did they find that narrator?

The story line was a little amateurish, but I think it was ok for a first effort. However, the narrator made the bad guy soundsound like an idiot and not very menacing. Did they audition him first?

Preposterous Story Made Even Worse By Narrator

I listen to a TON of audiobooks, but this is one of the first that I've given up on. It's that bad. First, the narrator is unlistenable. I know, that's not a word, but I don't know how else to describe jut how horrible the narration is. The book is told mainly from the perspective of a woman (so far, I couldn't get beyond chapter 9), with most of the quoted material female voices, but the producers of this audiobook chose to go with a male narrator. And boy, does this dude suck at doing women's voices. The main character, Abby, is supposed to be from Georgia, so she has a Southern accent. Sometimes. It seems that the narrator often forgets that Abby has an accent and just uses his "generic female voice" for Abby. This voice sounds an awful lot like Mr. Garrison from South Park. When Abby and her friend Sara get together, the falsetto undifferentiated tones sound like a drag queen talking to herself. But the female voices aren't the only place where the narrator ruins the experience - he gives half the young black men in the book the same falsetto treatment. Oh, and the Iraqi guy gets an Indian accent. Whatevs, close enough, right? It was all distracting to say the least.

If the only problem with this book were the horrible narration, I could pump up the speed to 2.5x and power through the dialogue. Alas, the story itself could not redeem this train wreck. The only believable aspect of the book is the scenes in which Abby is working as a senior associate in a big law firm. That is, if you discount every time Abby and her fellow associate Sara call each other "girlfriend." Professional, adult women don't talk like that. It made me shudder every time. Anyway, the story. So, without spoiling too much, Abby ends up on the wrong train, runs around a seedy area of Chicago at night, and ends up witnessing a crime. First, her stupidity was just unbelievable. If she felt unsafe on the train or at the station, there are ways to alert the cops. Instead, she goes running around an unfamiliar and unsafe area in the middle of the night. Her cell phone is dead. She finally finds a bar with a pay phone, but she ends up leaving without making a call because she doesn't know the address of the place. Seriously? The address is printed on the pay phone, and, if it's been scratched off, you could call the operator or go out onto the street and check for a number and street name. Instead, this woman with a law degree and the credentials to work at a big Chicago firm can think only of running back to the train station, not realizing it's closed, then she runs back to the bar, where trouble ensues.

Even if you accept all that, how weird is it that she doesn't call the police at her first opportunity to do so and then doesn't tell any of her friends or coworkers the crazy story about finding a dead prostitute in a bathroom? I mean, if she's getting into trouble at work for missing assignments, it would seem that this would be a factor affecting performance and worth mentioning. I was also annoyed that the author made this obviously intelligent woman such a wuss. The character just seems so inconsistent. All she does is think about her ex-boyfriend. Just leave him alone! She also calls him multiple times and hangs up before voice mail can pick up, then the author tells us she's working up the nerve to call him. Huh? So much of this book doesn't make much sense. I don't consider myself a militant feminist, but between the author's depiction of the main character as a complete ditz half the time and the narrator's supremely annoying voices, this book made me angry. I couldn't go on.

Narration distracts from the story

Is there anything you would change about this book?

If you can get past the narration, which is very silly and borderline racist when voicing certain characters, the story itself is actually pretty smart and interesting.

What did you like best about this story?

Smartly written. Since the author is an actual lawyer the legal part of the story was convincing.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Jeff Cummings?

Literally anyone.

Could you see The Green Line being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Perhaps Anna Kendrick as Abby, Shemar Moore as Marcus.

Horrid narration

Would you try another book from E. C. Diskin and/or Jeff Cummings?

From the publisher's summary I WANTED to read this book, especially since I grew up in Chicago. Very unfortunately the narrator was really the worst I have ever heard (and my collection of audio books is in the hundreds), so, regardless of how good the story may have been, I wasn't able to enjoy it. After approximately an hour of ear assault I was forced to stop.

Would you ever listen to anything by E. C. Diskin again?

I would consider another book by this author ONLY IF THE NARRATOR WAS DIFFERENT.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

His ability to do different voices was a joke. He REALLY messed up the main character - she is from the south and the narrator had trouble doing a woman, let alone one with a southern accent. It wasn't even funny - it was just BAD. Because there was a fair amount she had to "say", the narrator had to do her voice a lot and he simply couldn't. Someone should have stopped him.

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

I couldn't say because I was stuck - hearing the narrator was truly an audible assault.

Any additional comments?

Do not listen to anything narrated by Jeff Cummings.

The narrator is a chameleon

Sometimes a reader comes along and adds so much passion to a book that you think more about the reader than the writer (narrators: Harry Berkeley, Kaleo Griffith, Dick Hill to name a few). As for the book itself E.C Diskin is a great writer and does a great job. The use of obscenities took away from this creativity.

Excellent Story

This was a great novel, unique and fast paced. The characters were well developed and the story was engaging. Narration was excellent.