I'm Listening!

Rules of Deception

RW Karp — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:26:34 +0000

After the disappointment of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol I wanted to find an audio book that I would really enjoy. As luck would have it, I got it right with Rules of Deception by Christopher Reich.

I love this book! I'm close to the end; and while it has taken me several weeks of listening to get there (I've been distracted with holidays, visitors, and a 36 mile bicycle race,) I'm looking forward to the last few discs. This spy-thriller could have been another Ludlum clone, but the author has though about the plot, and provided lots of compelling characters.

Each step of the plot has brought surprises. The end is in sight, but I'm not sure exactly what that will be. The audio book is enhanced by a supurb narration by Paul Michael.

I Finished The Lost Symbol

RW Karp — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:19:08 +0000

Wow. An over-rated, over-hyped book. Definitely not that great. All of the author's weakness in plot construction and dialog are evident in this follow-up to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. There was one good plot twist, but that's about it.

Read my complete review. Comments are turned on for this. Let me know what you think.

The Lost Symbol

RW Karp — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:39:31 +0000

The action has picked up. I'm now about a third of the way through The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown. The bad guys are beginning to make themselves known and unlike Brown's earlier works, we are getting quite a bit of back story on various characters.

I'm not yet convinced that this is better than The Da Vinci Code. But I wish I was going into town more often so I could listen in the car. However, I'm avoiding an outbreak of the flu in our area while I wait for my flu shot to kick in.

Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol

RW Karp — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:01:01 +0000

I have started the 17 hour The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown's follow-up to The Da Vinci Code. I'm about a quarter of the way through it. So far it's rather slow. Not a lot of action and even more static scenes with lots of exposition than his previous books. At this point I'm guessing about 30 minutes has elapsed in the timeline. I've seen soap operas that moved more quickly.

That seems to be about to change as a door is opened deep underneath the capitol building in Washington, DC.

I'm listening on my iPod in my car. I love it!

The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly

RW Karp — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 17:48:27 +0000

I'm just about finished with an excellent audio book version of popular author Michael Connelly, The Scarecrow. Connelly has one of the best detective series going with the Harry Bosch stories. In The Scarecrow he brings back two characters from earlier works. Los Angeles Times reporter, Jack McEvoy and FBI agent Rachel Walling. McEvoy appeared many years ago in The Poet. Now about to leave the Times, McEvoy stumbles on a big story that leads to a serial killer.

This book is Connelly at his finest. Well-written with a just the right inside touches about the life of a journalist at a major paper like the LA Times, the plot moves swiftly along with lots of action and suspense. I'm on the final disc and should finish it tomorrow when I drive into town. This is a great listen!

Sofie Metropolis

RW Karp — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:33:19 +0000

I downloaded Sofie Metropolis to my iPod as my test audio book. While this isn't the sort of story I usually read or listen to, I thought I would give it a try. For fans of this genre this is a very entertaining book. If you like Janet Evanovich you will probably like Tori Carrington's characters. For me it's a bit too cute. This might be a case where reading the novel would be preferable to listening to the audio version. The narrator's accents seemed a bit sterotypical to me. The grandfather instead of sounding Greek had traces of a nice count dracula transylvania accent!

I'm just being a bit grumpy. I tend toward a more hard boiled type of story.

Two David Baldacci Titles

RW Karp — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:04:56 +0000

Two weeks ago I started Divine Justice, the latest in the Camel Club series by David Baldacci. I love this series and was looking forward to finding out how Oliver Stone (no, not that Oliver Stone) managed to survive the dive off the cliff into the ocean at the end of The Collectors. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting to find out. The Baldacci audio books are very popular. I was only on disc two when my last copy was purchased and I reluctantly packed up the discs to send to a customer.

I switched over to First Family, Baldacci's latest featuring ex-secret service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell. I'm only two discs into this title and hoping that I can get further before all my copies go out. So far I'm totally baffled about what's going on.

Updated 8/4/09: You can now read my review, which is posted.

Michael Connelly's The Overlook

RW Karp — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:40:06 +0000

I finished The Overlook. I will put up a full review on this site in the next few days. This was a great audio book, having all the elements that show why Michael Connelly continues to be one of the very best writers working in the mystery/crime/police genre. The story is shorter than his other recent novels, but if you are a Harry Bosch fan, be sure to read or listen to it.

Recent Listens - Some Alex Cross(s)

RW Karp — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:38:35 +0000

I just caught up on two more of the James Patterson Alex Cross novels. You can knock these often fairly quickly. I happen to listen to them to and from town, a drive of about 15 miles each way. I've tried to cut down on my trips into town, but I bicycle with friends and we meet at the mall to hit the Sierra Vista bike paths (which are very nice - by the way). It usually takes me 15 to 20 minutes to get there so I get in about an hour of listening every few days.

First up was Cross, published in November 2006. Somehow I missed this one when it came out, probably because I've been off of Patterson for awhile. Of all the various series that he authors or co-authors, the Alex Cross series are the best in my opinion. The author definitely knows how create scary serial killer characters. The "butcher" is another great one in the Patterson collection. I have two problems with these sort of stories. First, there is almost too much detail in the horrific crimes of the serial killer. I thought some of the description nearly went over the edge into sadomasochist porn. Probably hearing it rather than reading it increased the intensity. The other problem, which I have mentioned in other reviews of James Patterson, is that he can't come up with a satisfying ending for a story! Cross ends dully as far as I'm concerned. 2 ears.

In November 2007 the next Alex Cross story was published, Double Cross. More serial killers appear as well as the reappearance of "The Mastermind". It is reviewed on this site.

November 2008 brought Cross County. I have to give Patterson credit for attempting something a bit different. Again we have a lot of violence that might be too much for some readers. There is another killer "The Tiger" who leads a gang of young men who kill with no concern. The path leads to Nigeria and the story shifts to that country. While I don't think that everything in this story works that well - the story seems to wander once it leaves the USA, I do think the author was trying to break free of the constraints of this series.

Regular readers of the series will probably be disappointed. Just as Sue Grafton has tried to reboot her alphabet series in recent years, James Patterson has expanded the world of Alex Cross. For some of us that's a good thing. 2 ears.