The Watchers

De: Jon Steele

Narrado por: Jonathan Davis

Beneath Lausanne Cathedral, in Switzerland, there is a secret buried before time began, something unknown to angels and men, until now....

Marc Rochat watches over the city at night from the belfry of the cathedral. He lives in a world of shadows and "beforetimes" and imaginary beings.

Katherine Taylor, call girl and daydreamer, is about to discover that her real-life fairy tale is too good to be true.

Jay Harper, private detective, wakes up in a crummy hotel room with no memory. When the telephone rings and he's offered a job, he knows he has no choice but to accept.

Three lives, one purpose: save what's left of paradise before all hell breaks loose.

©2012 Jon Steele (P)2012 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“A seductive cosmic thriller stoked by historic fact, an ancient Jewish religious text, and a literary classic... Steele’s lavishly atmospheric, witty, bloody, and swashbuckling tale of age-old struggles for dominion between angels and demons is the propitious first book in an ambitious series.” (Booklist, starred)

“An imaginative metaphysical thriller… Steele keeps his tale tantalizingly ambiguous, casting it with fey characters and skillfully concealing until the climax whether apparent weird events haven’t been manipulated to make them seem so. This solidly plotted tale, the first in a trilogy, will appeal to readers who like a hint of uncanny in their fiction.” (Publishers Weekly)

“A first novel (and first in a series) from Steele, for years a master cameraman for Independent Television News and author of War Junkie, an underground classic; really smart work for serious thriller readers.” (Library Journal)

Best of my best

Would you listen to The Watchers again? Why?

It's required to truly understand the story!

Who was your favorite character and why?

Can't choose.

What does Jonathan Davis bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

No idea. I haven't read it. Narration is terrific.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Could not!

Meh

It's not that that this is a bad book, it's just not that interesting. I'm a big fan of the Book of Enoch (which Jonathan Davis pronounced "Eneck" the whole time, grrr!) and angel- lore but I felt that this wasn't a good "angels are amoung us and people too!" story.
The first good third of the book could have probably been summed up in a couple of paragraphs to give us a feel for the three main characters. In fact, most of the book could have been dealt with in a couple of chapters as backstory, thereby doing away with then need to make this a trilogy.
If you have a credit you really don't know what to do with, listen to the sample. The whole thing. Really

Could not finish…

The language differences and excessive descriptive language made it impossible for me to engage. I wish I had been able to swap this title with something more appealing to me.

A wonderful collision of genres filled w surprises

Pretty Woman meets a Jason Statham blockbuster and adds a sprinkle of the Da Vinci Code and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. And bam! There you have The Watchers. I wanna say I got this title as a Daily Deal or maybe a sale item and boy am I glad I did. What a gem. I don't even know that I saw what genre this actually fell under until now (Literature & Fiction/Horror). Based on the synopsis I felt like I was walking into something rather straightforward, however it became anything but.

There were a few reviews bemoaning the length and slow progression of the book. I'm a sucker for long books so I decided to look past those. While indeed on the longer side and somewhat slower paced for the first half, it was marvelously developed. The bounce back between characters kept the pace interesting enough to keep going. The character development was really successful in my opinion. While I've never been to Switzerland, I've got a really good idea what the city was like. There's a bit of technical jargon with regard to the cathedral but it was woven in so as not to be boring or irrelevant.

3 unlikely characters lead very different lives and yet they meet for some of the most important reasons in the world. Rochat, a mentally and physically challenged young man is the bell keeper at the Lausanne Cathedral. He appears to have some OCD tendencies and rather eccentric habits but he's kindly and very special. Katherine is a self-indulgent young escort living her best life out of the limelight and scrutiny of tax collectors and law enforcement. She spends her days indulging in anything and everything her consorts provide for her. Jay Harper, a private detective/washed up alcoholic, is called to this old city in Switzerland on the guise of solving a missing persons mystery. There are some crossing of paths but little do any of them know, how intertwined they will all be at some point.

For a good portion of the story, things feel like any whodoneit type mystery. Good cop/bad cop, down on his luck detective, trying to solve the mystery only to find that he's fallen down some kind of crazy rabbit hole and is likely the scapegoat and not the detective he thought he was.

Marc Rochat, what a charming character. You can't help but feel protective of him and hope that the citizens do good by him. He talks to bells and shadows and statues and skeletons and sees angels. He's special in so many ways.

Katherine, naive is an understatement but she thinks she's got the world all figured out when in fact she does not.

Jonathan Davis is just brilliant bringing to life the characters and adding accents and latin and french flawlessly.

The plot is handsomely crafted. Smooth sailing for a while then BAM you're turned on your head and riding the wave in a totally different direction. And you're going "whattttttt? I would never have seen that coming!"

It definitely got me invested. I've ordered up the next 2 books in the trilogy and can't wait to see where the story picks back up.

Give it a go. Let yourself get immersed in the storyline.

Excellent

Fantastic character development and blending of the Book of Enoch with a Thriller!

Very impressed and recommend to anyone seeking a religious fiction thriller.

Fun Fantasy Story. Great Narrator. A Little Long.

Would you listen to The Watchers again? Why?

no. it was a fine story, but there's nothing that i think i missed or need to hear again. i'm not usually one to re-read fantasy stories.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

most interesting: angels, demons, half breeds. very interesting and new type of fantasy story.

least interesting: the way that the author wrote the character of Katherine Taylor. especially her dialogue, and inner monologues. she was a BADLY portrayed female character. it was extremely frustrating to hear her words and thoughts and every interaction she had with every other character annoyed the hell out of me.

Which character – as performed by Jonathan Davis – was your favorite?

Marc Rochat. his character was the redeeming character in this book. he was so well written and imagined. he was brought up to think himself simple minded, but he was the most complex character in this novel. i think Jonathan Davis brought his innocence to life.

Unexpected. Dramatic. Mystical. Really unexpected!

This is one of those books for which you really must be "in the mood" to enjoy. Of course, it's hard to know how that mood can be described, because I THOUGHT the story was about one or two fairly obvious things, but about 10 hours into this 14.5 hour tale, I realized that the book was about something else entirely! I wont give away the story by telling you that the tale is an intersecting story of the lives of 3 sets of people in contemporary Switzerland: an American high-rolling call girl, the mentally simple bell-ringer in a midieval cathederal and a British....what? Spy? Consultant? Posing as a security consultant to the International Olympic Committee. As the tale unfolds, we find who he is, but that's part of the twist. I recommend this book to anyone who likes the juxtaposition of reality and mysticism, and the idea that they just may not be that far apart.

Waste of Time

Would you try another book from Jon Steele and/or Jonathan Davis?

No I would not I have already wasted enough of my time

What was most disappointing about Jon Steele’s story?

The lack of depth of the characters and the amature way the storie flowed

What three words best describe Jonathan Davis’s performance?

Decent, acceptable, Good enough for government work

Did The Watchers inspire you to do anything?

It inspired me to avoid this author, and question how he even got a book deal.

Any additional comments?

Dont waste your time. The Idea for the story is a good one almost original but its execution and presentation are awful. The author spends too much time on details of mundane life and does a poor job explaning the more complex happenings in the book leaving the reader to guess at what is going on or how the characters got from point a to point B.

Excellent read

A beautifully written complex story. Be patient as it is slow to get started. Well written cast of complex and perfectly flawed characters all struggling to find their way.

I loved the author's knowledge of apocryphal books and his use of Latin and French throughout the story.

Loved it!

Wow!

After an odd start and slow beginning, I was amazed how much I liked this book. So glad I kept going with it .