Reviews of Audio Books
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
The wait was five years for the next in the Robert Langdon series that includes Angels & Demons and the incredibly successful The Da Vinci Code.
The wait is now over and it certainly wasn’t worth it. To summarize – The Lost Symbol is an overwrought, action less, poorly constructed novel that never rises above the pedestrian, and often succumbs to contrivance.
The story starts out well enough with Langdon summoned to Washington D.C. on short notice to fill-in at a lecture as a favor to an old friend. The one great scene is the action at the Capitol rotunda where a severed hand is discovered pointing upward. This puts the plot in motion, or rather slow motion.
The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly
;)
It all starts with a pink-slip, or as they say at the Times, being added to the 30 list. McEvoy is given his two weeks notice as the Los Angeles Times continues on a relentless downsizing trend. It's no comfort to Jack that he was last cut in the round of layoffs and that he can stay on to train his young and cheaper replacement on the crime beat.
He takes this humiliation well, deciding to go out with a bang - a crime story that will rock the city. He thinks he has found it in what appears to be a case of murdered prostitute in a crime-ridden public housing project in south central Los Angeles. When it becomes clear that the teen-age drug dealer didn't do the murder the question is - who did?
Divine Justice by David Baldacci
;)
Bette Midler used to sing “you’ve got to have friends….” And that just about sums up David Baldacci’s fourth installment of the Camel Club series, Divine Justice. Oliver Stone is on the run after the murderous conclusion of Stone Cold. In order to protect the remaining members of the Camel Club he has left everything and everyone behind as he flees Washington DC.
In a Camel Club novel, much of the story is about Stone’s, whose real name is John Carr, past. In this story we get much more of what went on before he became a triple six assassin. Stone seems to have the ability to make enemies of people who ultimately reside in very high places. In this case retired General Macklin Hayes, now a shadowy figure in the intelligence community has a grudge to settle.
Hayes is on Stone’s trail and has sent CIA agent Joe Knox to find Stone. Find him, not bring him in because Hayes has other more lethal plans.