The Vault

Audible Original

By: Mark Dawson

Narrated by: Atilla Akinci, Laila Alj Philip Arditti, Kieran Brown, Ben Cartwright, Stephen Critchlow, Vera Filatova, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Gerran Howell, David Menkin, Colin Morgan, Harry Myers, Erich Redman, Mac Keith Roach, Lizzie-Aaryn Stanton, David Thorpe

Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

West Berlin, 1986. 

The Cold War has not yet thawed, political tensions inspire bloody retribution and trust is a rare commodity - even amongst allies.  

Harry Mackintosh is the head of MI6’s Berlin Station. When four of his best field agents are murdered by the Stasi during a failed defection operation, he has no choice but to respond. East German intelligence has become increasingly ruthless. MI6 has been overrun. Mackintosh knows that he won’t be able to fight back, unless he’s provided with a new kind of operative.  

London.  

Belfast-born Jimmy Walker is a career criminal, desperate to leave the world of organised crime behind. He’s made just enough money to think about going straight. He wants to be a family man. He wants to stay alive for his wife and son. He wants to be the man they deserve.  

He reluctantly agrees to one final job with the intention that it will be his last.  

Little does Jimmy know that he’s been set-up. The sins of his past are about to catch up with him.  

Framed, arrested and imprisoned, Jimmy is about to become a pawn in the politics, corruption and underground conflicts of Europe. Mackintosh appears in Jimmy’s Scotland Yard cell and makes him an offer. Go to Berlin to serve Queen and Country and he will be pardoned. The alternative? A life behind bars. Jimmy has no choice but to accept. He infiltrates East Berlin and, operating under cover as an arms buyer for the IRA, he works his way to the heart of the Stasi machine until he locates the defector. But all is not as it seems. Mackintosh has an ulterior motive. So does Jimmy. Neither man can trust the other and, as their objectives clash, it looks as if only one of them is going to get out alive. 

Set in divided Berlin at a pivotal moment in history, and soaked in '80s nostalgia, The Vault is a thrilling adventure set in Mark Dawson’s million-selling Group Fifteen world.    

Featuring: Atilla Akinci, Laila Alj Philip Arditti, Kieran Brown, Ben Cartwright, Stephen Critchlow, Vera Filatova, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Gerran Howell, David Menkin, Colin Morgan, Harry Myers, Erich Redman, Mac Keith Roach, Lizzie-Aaryn Stanton and David Thorpe.

©2018 Mark Dawson (P)2019 Audible, Ltd

at least there's narration

The problem with these cast-of-thousands productions is you cannot tell who is speaking. And with the sound effects, you can't tell who is walking, who is knocking, who is sitting. It's like watching a movie but with the screen blacked out. All you get is the audio and no clues as to what is going on. This book is a little better than some because we have the wonderful David Thorpe narrating, which does fill in some of the questions. I listened for less than half an hour but there's no Milton, so that's a drag.

However, there are many people who seem to like this type of program, so maybe it will work for you.

It grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go!

I only got a few minutes into this audiobook before I was hooked. This story is intriguing and unpredictable, reminding me a bit of “The Man from UNCLE” in that two very different characters form an unlikely partnership (founded on blackmail) to carry out a seemingly impossible mission. Although they work together, neither character really trusts the other. I spent the entire audiobook on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next! There were a few plot twists towards the end that I didn’t see coming. 🙂
Great performances by all of the actors! As a frequent audiobook listener, I sometimes find audiobooks in which at least one performance is either dull/monotone or overly dramatic in a way that distracts from the storyline. In this audiobook, however, I enjoyed all of the performances! It was an interesting change to have the characters themselves narrating their thoughts instead of having the narrator tell all of those thoughts in third person. I think that this technique kept me more engaged and less reminded of the fact that the story is “not real life.” In summary, I enjoyed this audiobook and hope to find more like it!

Decent story, terrible adaptation

Unfortunately, this is a decent book spoiled by an awful adaptation. I am fine with a cast performance, or a radio style dramatization. The BBC does this spectacularly well. Unfortunately, this one falls into no man's land. Dawson's writing on his own is quite good. This is an obvious homage to Le Carre's works such as Smiley's People. It's not quite up to the same standard, the plot is a bit thin, the build-up weak. But the writing is still enjoyable. The cast is good when they aren't choking on lines that aren't in the original book. Unfortunately they are too frequently speaking a redundant narrative directly to the reader along the lines of: "Boy, I sure am worried about (the Nazis / this tunnel / my family / getting home) or whatever." You are better off with the ebook version. Or some other adaptation.

Dreadful

The story is grim. I did not care for/about the characters. Primarily, the production was irritating. Long moments of loud music and sound effects are not what I look for when "reading" a book. Multiple narrators may have eliminated "he said" and "she said" but made listening difficult. Some were too soft and difficult to understand. I kept having to backtrack and adjust the volume.

Compelling

Nice story, excellent narration, interesting characters. The story is placed in the end of the eighties, just before the fall of Berlin's wall and involves Northern Ireland, England, West and East Germany. Colin Morgan is again awesome in the way he reads his character.

Compelling Audio Style

Well done perfectly cast production. Three methods of performance that flow together seamlessly: straight narration to provide background and setting, character dialogue in current setting, and selected character monologue of inner thoughts and struggles of conscience providing description and ambience. And my favorite audio performer, Colin Morgan, who does not disappoint. So there's that. Also my first introduction to Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. I'll be seeking out more of his work.

Good overall story

For my older ears the dramatically read presentation did not provide consistent volume or clarity of the spoken word. Hence, a strained and painfully listen at time. One good narrator would have been better or you would have mixed it correctly in the studio before your hard, final burn. You ruined the audio trying to be too cute and dramatic because you didn’t mix the finished product correctly. Get some quality QA standards please.

Good Story, terrible sound editing

Absolutely the worst sound editing in a book I’ve ever heard. EVER. Unfortunate, since it seemed to be a good Group 15 story. Couldn’t hear half the lines because of the sound changes and distracting sound effects.

Musical interludes

I didn't care for the musical interludes. The lead character sounded too much like a well known British actor.

Thrilling

A good listen, loved the voices of the characters and the story was fast moving

Vaulting Ambition!

This is a great comic-book caper from Audible. It’s set back to the late 80s when I was in my prime, heading out into the world and what a world it was with momentous events just around the corner. Dawson and the team have tapped into this quite nicely and this is a good, fun production that apes those times and doesn’t try to be too gritty or realistic with its plotting or characterisation. The recipe is an extensive one with MI6, the Stasi and even other secret services being mixed into the dough. Add to that, Jimmy, the wildcard Irish character and it all fizzes along nicely never aiming for any great sophistication or depth. The soundscape is decent and adds nicely to the enthusiastic performances though if you don’t listen under very good conditions you will find that on a few occasions the characters descend into whispers and you’re likely to need to skip back just occasionally to pick it all up.

The way it’s written is almost an invite to Tom Cruise to come and do the Hollywood treatment on it, it has that feel of clinging to just enough reality to have the popcorn thriller vibe to it. It’s well worth a credit on that basis but John le Carré aficionados might not get so much out of it.

Quiet Audio Play

My first 'audio play' book.
I'm a fan of Mark Dawson, and read many of his books. I was however disappointed with this 'perfomance'.
Good story, let down by, at times, very quiet dialogue (I missed quite a lot, even at full volume throughout).
I also found the long, quiet pauses between chapters, followed by unnecessarily long 'dramatic' music, just wasn't to my taste.
As I said though, a good story & I listened through to the end.

Audio needs to be reworked to level up the voices

Enjoyable story and liked the length. But Audible should not be selling this while the sound track varies so much - very loud narrator then whispers from the cast. Impossible to listen to on headphones unless you have your volume control to hand. Would not take much to equalise the volumes and make the whole thing enjoyable.

Fun story, infuriating production

A compelling story that had me wondering how things would play out right to the very end.

The performances are solid and engaging. The cast do a great job bringing this to life.

But the production was so all over the place. One minute I’m straining to hear the dialogue so I nudge the volume up. The next, I’m being deafened by the narrator.

The musical breaks at the start of each chapter are unnecessary too, but I’m nitpicking.

Overall, it was certainly worth a credit.

Good

Apart from the low level audio dialog and musical intermissions, it was a good story linking into characters from other series from Dawson. Good cast of actors.

The Vault

an excellent audio book. great characters. and Mr Bloom showing up from the Isabella rose books. you have excelled yourself Mr Dawson.

Not your usual narrative

This seems to be a new style of book. Rather than a simple narrator, there are characters, i.e. lots of voices. At first this takes a little while to adjust to, because you use your own imagination a lot less. However, I stopped listening after about 20 minutes as the speaker volumes just varied too much. It was like the main narrator was shouting and the actors whispering. I was missing chunks of the storyline, as I simply could not hear the speakers, and so I turned it off, which is a shame as it sounded like it would have been a good book,

245 books in and my first dramatisation

firstly. great story. ending was a bit curtailed. felt a wee bit like a certain time limit had been met, so we better shut up!! but great characters.

and the dramatisation... not for me I'm afraid. I found the music distracting. and certain voices felt edited in and not part of the flow.


I'm others will love. not me.

I'm back off to find an unabridged and single narrator book with no sweeping keyboard chords!!

hopeless production

I tend to listen to my audible books on my commute, but because there are are so many different participants the vocal range i.e. the volume goes from blowing out your ears to trying to catch a whisper . Constantly having to alter the volume absolutely ruined a readable book.

Spectacular

A truly entertaining audio read. Congratulations to everybody who took part in this production. Highly recommended.