The Suppressor

Silence Jones Action Thrillers Series, Book 1

By: Erik Carter

Narrated by: Gary Bennett

Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

Assassins aren’t born.

They’re forged.

Silence Jones is the legendary assassin feared by the criminal world, a righteous vigilante backed by a covert group hidden deep within US government.

Yet even legends have their beginnings....

Silence’s previous world is shattered in a single night—his fiancée murdered and his body destroyed. Left for dead, clinging to life, his brutal revenge leaves a long and bloody trail.

But when his employers discover that the people who killed his fiancée have much bigger plans in mind—plans with deadly implications for national security—will Silence be able to refocus his rage in order to stop a catastrophe?

The first standalone action thriller in the pulse-pounding new series. Enter the world of Silence Jones. Hold on tight....

If you like action heroes with the steely resolve of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, the calculating will of Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X, and the raw power of Mark Greaney’s Gray Man, then you’ll love Silence Jones.

Unlock The Suppressor and start your Silence Jones mission today!

©2021 Erik Carter (P)2023 Erik Carter

Action Packed - Love Silence!

What drives a man to kill? For Silence Jones, the murder of his fiancé, mutilation of his face, and the near destruction of his vocal cords force Jones to become a vigilante assassin. Those that stole everything from him are winding up dead, and those still left living are living in fear. Offered a new life and job, Silence Jones becomes the judge, jury, and executioner for the watchers.

The author, Erik Carter weaves a dark story of loss and revenge. Carter writes to several types of listeners – those seeking action and adventure, redemption, compassion, and darkness. Carter accomplishes all this and more with this dark story. His characters are well developed and rich in depth. The plot twists throughout the story were well done. My favorite character was the old woman on the porch – she knew Silence and guided him in his growth. I thought her place in the story reflected his continued connection to humanity given all his losses.

The narrator, Gary Bennett gives a solid performance that adds to the mystery with Silence Jones. His unique voice and attitude matched the character perfectly. The level of gravel sound in his voice reflected the pain vividly that Silence was enduring. The performance of Bennett moved the story forward. Bennett’s performance nudged this book well above the standard 5-star rating thus earning the book the AudioBook Reviewer’s Choice Award.

Due to the above, this book was awarded the highly prestigious AudioBook Reviewer’s Choice Award as it was believed to deserve a higher rating than the standard 5-star rating.

The production and quality of this audiobook were perfect. I encountered no issues; it was clear and crisp.

Disclaimer: This Audiobook was provided free of charge by the author, narrator, and/or publisher in exchange for a non-bias, honest review.

Alittle too jumbled for a relaxing read.

It was a pretty fair story, but the way it was told was a little too jumbled for relaxing read. I felt like I needed to take notes as to who was who and what time frame we were in.

Deadly Silence

Silence Jones has very quickly become one of my favorites characters and I suspect he will grow for others as well. The prequel setup on this really made it very easy to roll directly into the first book in the thriller series.

The draw is we can all see and understand his drive and desire to avenge the death of someone who loved him so purely and without asking him to be anything other than what he was. Not allowing him to be changed as much as evolved due to the tragedy and still find his humanity and allow life back into him was well written. I can't say it enough times, very happy with these books and excited for more.

An Excellent Book - Preformed Masterfully!

The Suppressor is a fantastic book in a familiar genre.
This action thriller is a tale of a flawed and haunted avenging angel named Silence Jones. Like so many other books reaching back into antiquity, our hero carries deep wounds of both the physical and emotional variety. The unique twist on such a theme is truly worthy of your time.
The book is well written, but it is also masterfully performed by Gary Bennett. Bennett draws you in with a fantastic performance, and he makes you feel sad when you have to put the book down for a time. A terrible performance has ruined many great books, but this one will not let you down.
Five stars across the board.

What A Story

4.5 out of 5 stars

So, I really thought that Deadly Silence was an introduction to Silence, but boy was I wrong. After reading the first book in the series, I think Deadly Silence, even though it was billed as book 0.5, should be more of a 1.5 (or like a 0.9 or 1.1). The Suppressor is really two complete stories since it's an introduction to Silence before he was Silence, his training, and then his first full mission. Don't get me wrong, it read wonderfully as a first book. I'm just happy to get so much story out of a book.

The Suppressor hit me in so many ways. I loved Carter's writing style and his ability to keep me on the edge of my seat as a reader. The whole opening of the book had me wondering what was going to happen, and even after stuff did happen - I was still looking for what's next. Carter was able to write a book that had me keep going "wow, that's great, let's keep going". And not a lot of authors can hook me that fast.

Combine that with the main character who doesn't speak outwardly much (especially in the second part of the book) and I read something, unlike anything I've ever read. Sure, it has bits and pieces that remind me of other great action/thriller titles, but this was definitely unique.

If I were to critique anything about this book, it would be the insanely repetitive use of the phrase "diaphragmatic breathing". Now, I almost didn't add this into my review because I learned that his brain works differently from mine by getting to know Silence as a man. But, good lord did Carter add that phrase in a lot. Every time I heard "a deep breath, a..." I would guess "diaphragmatic!!!" and it started to take away from the story. Like I said above, I get that Silence's brain works differently than mine, but I had to call it like I saw it. It bothered me and I wanted to just make sure I pointed it out. I'd bet if I was reading the story instead of listening to it I probably wouldn't have even noticed. (note: it's only said 9 times, I'm not sure why it bothered me as much as it did).

Throw in the great narration by Gary Bennett and you have a book that I absolutely flew through. Carter's writing style combined with Bennett's delivery, especially of the gravely and broken voice of Silence was perfect. A match made in heaven.

A man on a mission of murder

If you are into stories of action and you like to be thrilled along the way, I can recommend you give “The Suppressor” a listen; it is the first book in the “Silence Jones Action Thrillers Series”. The story is on the edge of being a bit noirish, but not over the top graphically. I have a feeling once you finish this audiobook, you will be picking up the others as well. The book is written by Erik Carter who has a total of two series, including this one, currently available on Audible. This is the first of his material I have had the pleasure of listening too. For me, what made this book even more enjoyable was the exceptional narration by one of my favorite narrators, Gary Bennett. I very much enjoyed his narration of the “Dragon Mage” series and would happily listen to him voice nearly anything. Mr. Bennett is a seasoned narrator with just under one hundred books narrated on Audible at the time of this review. The story starts off at a high speed and it only increases as you get deeper. If this seems to be a book you would enjoy, give it a listen.

The story is a about a man who was an undercover police office within a crime syndicate, but a tragic event occurred which turned him in to a man who could only focus on revenge and causing pain to those who took everything from him. Without giving away too much (no spoilers), we see his involvement in systematically deconstructing the organization which ultimately hurt him while additionally working for a secret operation whose goal is to help those in need, much like Robin Hood. Even with all his rage, we see that Silence has compassion and that he cares for those close to him. He is not solely a methodical rage killer, but also a man with a heart and empathy for others. However, revenge clouds one’s mind and judgement so we see that he often gets lost in his rage.

I found the writing style to be a bit more descriptive than I like in book of this type. I like to have enough detail to mentally paint the picture, but not so much that my imagination does not have to work. With that said, I think the author did a wonderful job in giving the characters purpose and reason for their actions. Each of the main characters had depth and feeling which is often ignored by many other authors. Although I am not a fan of chapters that move around in the story’s timeline, I like chronological stories, I think it works for this audiobook once you get the idea of what is happening. Lastly, I wanted more background, and I would suppose others did as well, and I believe that such might be addressed in the prequel story which I will be reviewing shortly as well.

The audiobook’s narration was performed by the wonderful and talented Gary Bennett. He has come to set the stand for me with his professional audio quality and his ability to bring life to each of the story’s characters. Overall, the audio was clean of any auto effects such as swallows, page turns, etc. However, I did notice a few places with a bit of a garbled sound during complete silence. I know this is not often the fault of the audio, but more when the audiobook gets encoded by Audible. I mention it here only as some have asked I do so in my review. Let me be clear, Mr. Bennett shines and this little bit of audio noise does not take away from the story being told.

For parents and younger listeners, this book contains mature subject matter, profane language, and some rather graphic scenes of violence. As I had stated earlier, this has a noir feel and many of the things that define this genre are contained in this audiobook. I would not recommend the book for anyone but mature listeners or those not easily offended by the items mentioned above.

In summary, if you like actions and noir-type thrillers tales, I would suggest you give this audiobook a listen. Even though the writing is a bit descriptive, the character depth makes up for this drawback. For me, the narration brought the book to life as Mr. Bennett was able to make the characters pop out of the story and feel like they were actual people you knew. I can say that I look forward to listening to the other books in this series.

Disclaimer: This audiobook was provided at no cost by the author, narrator and/or publisher in exchange for posting a non-bias review.

A great listen!

I like a good action-packed thriller, and this checked all the boxes for me. Erik Carter has written a character that I wanted to know more about, and Gary Bennett gives an excellent performance.

Fantastic

I did a silly thing of listening to book 2 before this book. I listened to book 0.5 so I had an understanding of the job of Silence Jones. Nothing was explained about what happened to Silence so he had very limited speech. This book answers all my questions. There are descriptive violent scenes throughout the book! Be aware.
Narrator Gary Bennett is excellent with the perfect voice for Silence Jones.

The Suppressor

Silence is his name,at least it is now.A brutal attack has left him with nearly no voice,no face and a dead fiance.His new name brings a new career and a way to get revenge. Gary Bennett was a terrific narrator.I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Really like it, character interesting, good narrator

Some writers are just good at this. Somehow they seem to naturally write interesting characters— enough info to make you care but without diverting from the story or feeling contrived. good…. Balance maybe.
I searched for other books by him but this seems to be it so far.

For all its cliches, it still carries you along rooting for the characters and wanting to know what happens next.

I would say the narrator was too sedate for this type of book, but it actually fits with the silence/ruined voice/he’s a ghost idea.