The Third Twin

By: Ken Follett

Narrated by: January LaVoy

Length: 15 hrs

Publisher's summary

The study of twins and the genetics of aggression totally consumes research scientist Jeannie Ferrami. An accomplished and headstrong researcher, Jeannie has developed a sophisticated software program to identify identical twins reared apart. But Jeannie's breakthrough project is threatened by the appearance of a sudden impossibility - identical twins born weeks apart to different mothers at separate locations.

When Jeannie's research assistant, Lisa, is raped, Steve Logan, a young law student who is one of Jeannie's research subjects, is identified in a police lineup as Lisa's attacker. Logan's genetic tests reveal no violent behavior patterns. Then Jeannie stumbles upon the beginnings of a stunning revelation. Logan is unaware of the existence of a criminal twin brother in jail. Jeannie is convinced of Steve's innocence, yet her judgment may be clouded by her growing emotional attachment to him. By now Jeannie's problems are mounting.

Berrington Jones, Jeannie's arrogant and intimidating boss, is a world-renowned authority on biotechnical engineering. He and his partners are involved in devious but lucrative negotiations to sell Genetco, their biogenetic research company. Jeannie's research poses a major threat to their impending millions. Jones arranges to have Jeannie fired.

Stunned and feeling helpless, Jeannie doesn't understand why this has happened to her. With Steve and his brother in jail, who is committing these sex crimes? While acting on a hunch that might solve the mystery surrounding Steve and his brother's birth, Jeannie is violently attacked by yet another twin who looks exactly like Steve. Determined to protect her research program, and convinced her former boss has something important to hide, a terrified Jeannie has no other choice but to find out why Jones and his partners will stop at nothing to discredit her work.

©2010 Ken Follett (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Classic 90's Style

I purchased this book due to reader, Ms LaVoy as I am her new fan. See her in Marcia Clarks series, Rachel Knight. I like her voice range, especially her male voice, which has grown on me.

Note: I do use the new 1.25x speed to match the author's intent.

This book was written in the mid 90's, so yes, some of the other reviewer's comments were made. e.g. both stereotypes, black man and white cop.

If you are looking for another of author's historical works, this is not it.

I have not purchased other books from author, but knew of him from his book Eye of the Needle, well done, so I purchased this book. I was entertained and not disappointed.
I realized early on that this book was written in the 90's and not set in today's times, hence the story line and the dialogue.
Please let me know if my comments were a help to you?

Should have listened to other reviewers

When I read the reviews, I kept thinking "oh, come on, it's Ken Follett!! How bad can he be?!!!" The answer: AWFUL. He must have written this over a weekend. AVOID. The unnecessary violence is not just wrong because it's (a) violent and (b) unnecessary, it is also (c) badly written. The "plot" is absurd. Never mind the ridiculous coincidences that make all these cardboard characters come together....the "genetics" professor will not figure out the explanation of the "mystery" until EIGHT AND A HALF HOURS of "story." The average reader figures it out eight hours earlier. #trash #avoid

Still a Ken Follett fan - even after this.

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

It seems more for an adolescent audience.

Has The Third Twin turned you off from other books in this genre?

No. I enjoy this type of fiction, and I still love Ken Follett's writing.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Her delivery attempted to give the characters more substance than what the author gave them. This resulted in over dramatization that only succeeded in making the characters and the story less believable. Ms. LaVoy's voice is, however, pleasant, and she did a pretty good job creating variety in the voices of the different characters.

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

I'm afraid that it would be easier to select a scene that should be left in the book.

Any additional comments?

I have read and listened to hours and hours of Ken Follett's writing, and I have enjoyed his story lines as well as his character development. I found myself checking the title page several times throughout listening to this book, though, to try to convince myself that it was, indeed, a Ken Follett work. The premise wasn't bad, it just lacked any real development of the story line. The characters were flat and not very believable, and Mr. Follett's use of sex throughout the book trivialized rather than enhanced both the characters and the story.

Typical Follett but...

I enjoyed the book and the narrator however, I was a little annoyed that the physical descriptions of characters only specified race when it was a black person. When I caught on to it, I started paying close attention and sure enough others were described by height, age or accent. Weird.

Couldn't Finish

Any additional comments?

This novel is so unlike Follett's historical fictions. Agree with the other Audible reviews. The story is implausible and not well researched from a science perspective. I gave up about 5hr into the book.

Subpar for Ken Follett

If this had been my first Ken Follett book to read, I probably wouldn’t have read a second one. The storyline was not that unique, and seemed to rely on typical plot lines. It even seemed to have product placement promotions (American Express, US Air, AOL, etc.), as if he were getting paid to mention those companies. Worst of all, however, The plot depends on there being a challenge to the ethics of research being done at a university. Anyone who does research connected to a university knows that researchers have to undergo a rigorous IRB process, a process that would eliminate that part of this story from happening.

Full of stereotypes

The story reeks of stereotypes and predictable action. Halfway through listening I couldn’t stand it anymore and deleted it from my device.

painful

I really can't describe how much I hated this book. The main character is supposed to be brilliant, but it takes her more than half the book to figure out the "mystery" of the "twins". Granted, we have a huge clue in the title of the book, but given that she has a PhD in twin studies... Anyway, the book was at least 50% too long in a frustrating attempt to build suspense with implausible events. Add to that, the author was trying to sound super smart about genetics testing by describing the super neat technology of restriction fragment length polymorphism...which would probably make most people's eyes roll back in boredom. But for me, I found it frustrating because I have actually used this technology in paternity testing...and it's not even accurate. Add to that, all of the men you meet at the beginning of the book are bad people. Like outrageously bad people, and I began to wonder if the author was a misandrist. But then, I remembered the author was a man. I guess that doesn't preempt anyone from hating their own gender. Thank goodness for some decent men later in the book. Not that they were worth slogging through this book to get to. Even ignoring how badly this book aged (dear Lord, the internet references are terrible), this book feels like the author spent a year saying to himself "and THEN what" to get this thing written, which comes off as headbangingly painful.

Awful.

I was disappointed, I love Ken Follett
Books, this book was distributing I could not finish it.

Couldn't get into this book

Narrator was not adept at changing tones and voices. Story was forced. Ken does better historical fiction. This was not so good.