OK, I’ll admit that I was convinced to buy this book because it was read by George Guidall. But the reviews were strong enough that I found it worth considering…and waded in on the strength of the story premise: A German couple carrying on small acts of defiance against Hitler’s regime. Sounded interesting.

An older couple loses a son serving in the German army in World War II. The woman lashes out at her husband, blaming “you and your fuhrer”. Upon reflection, he realizes that…while he hates the Nazis, he has never done anything to resist. Yet, he believes that good men should do something to resist against that which is bad, even if that something is very small. So he takes it upon himself to write a series of anti-government sentiments on postcards, and to discreetly drop them around the city, where they will be found and read…sowing deeper seeds of discord against Hitler’s agenda. There are many memorable characters to the story, across all ages and social strata. There is a sense of sadness woven into all their lives. Many of them meet grisly ends at the hands of a power-mad government. All the main characters are very flawed and very human…but you definitely find yourself drawn deeply into their lives.

I really loved this story. In part, I’m sure it’s because I am fascinated by the events surrounding WWII. How could the German people have let things go so awry? What was it like living there at the time? The story transports you to that time and place. After reading more about how the story was written, I came to understand how it could feel so real. Hans Fallada was born in the late 1800s. He nearly didn’t survive his teens. He and a friend had a mutual suicide pact, and staged it as a duel. Fallada hit and killed the other kid, but the other missed him. So he picked up the other kid’s gun and shot himself in the chest…but, somehow, he survived. He went on to become a fairly successful author, and wrote Every Man Dies Alone in just 24 days in 1946. He died two weeks before its publication. Also, the story was based on the true story of a working class husband and wife, Otto and Elise Hampel, who committed acts of civil disobedience in Berlin during WWII before being caught. So it was VERY real. The book was a modest success at the time, but remained untranslated until 2009 when Michael Hofmann did it. It became a “surprise bestseller” in both the UK and the US.

George Guidall is simply golden. I don’t know how much more grandiose I can become in my praise for him. But I would probably be happy listening to a BAD book as long as he was reading it. Fortunately, this was a very good one. Definitely recommended!

The Millenium Trilogy consists (obviously) of three books, published in the U.S. as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest. By way of background, the stories were written in the first few years of the last decade by Stieg Larsson, a Swedish magazine editor who tragically never lived to see their publication and amazing success, passing away in 2004 at the age of 50. The books have already been made into movies in Sweden, and Hollywood is planning their own version, to be released in 2011…currently rumored to star Daniel Craig and Natalie Portman. On the success of these 3 books, Larsson was the second-best-selling author in the world in 2008. So the books have clearly been extremely well received…and if you haven’t heard of them already, plan to hear a lot more about them in the future.

The two main characters in the three stories are Lisbeth Salander, a girl in her mid-twenties who has suffered horrible abuse at the hands of her family and the government, and Mikael Blomkvist, a 40-something journalist. The stories are filled with intrigue, romance, violence, sex, action and misogyny (the first book was published in Sweden under the title “Men Who Hate Women”)…but also with a good dose of recent Swedish governmental history, including a look at the overreaching power of unaccountable government. The first book revolves around the family of a powerful industrialist and his missing (and apparently dead or kidnapped) granddaughter. The second book follows an attempt to bust open a sex-trafficking ring that shuttles young girls between the former USSR and Sweden. And the third involves Salander being brought to trial on charges of trying to murder her father.

I have to say that this is one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had in some time. I felt transported to Sweden and found myself looking up locations on Google Maps as I went along. In many ways, Larsson made Sweden feel much like America, and the characters were fully humanized. Salander has many offputting characteristics on the surface (as well as an impressive intellect and significant skills in both research and deductive powers), but you definitely feel for her and what she’s been through. And Blomkvist, while quite the ladies’ man, has an unflinching sense of loyalty and integrity…so he doesn’t come off as a shallow loser, as he could have. The violence and sexual themes can be pretty harsh, so this is definitely only appropriate for an adult audience (and not even for some adults, I’m sure). But it’s quite a ride…especially from a first-time novelist…long-winded and slow at times…but nonethless engaging and satsifying.

The narrator was a very pleasant discovery. I haven’t heard Simon Vance’s work before. He’s a Brit who has relocated to America, and he was simply superb, both at the straight reading and at the voice characterizations. I did have to laugh at a couple of the voices, because they felt like a bit of a bad Dracula impersonation…but everything is based on something, and I’m sure these were based on a legitimate dialect. It’s just that Dracula was my only reference point…so I chuckled out loud a few times. Until you’ve listened, it’s difficult to appreciate Vance’s heavy lifting here. Swedish names, street names and city names are very challenging…and they just roll off Vance’s tongue…so what could have become a very difficult listen was made quite easy…even in a story with lots of characters and complicated plot lines.

All told, these three stories total nearly 50 hours of listening. Two thumbs up from me for a well-delivered, rollicking ride. If you choose to imbibe, I hope you enjoy them as well!

I’ve listened to a handful of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels before and always enjoyed them. There’s a template for them (a very successful one, by all accounts…seeing as this is the 14th novel in the Reacher series): drifer drifts into town…mostly passing thru, gets caught up in local entanglement, despite his best efforts finds out he’s the only one who can solve the problem, solves the problem (usually with massive blood loss), and drifter moves on. Still…the delight is found in the telling of the tale, isn’t it?

Jack Reacher is ex-military, a beast of a man (6’5″), with a generally laid-back temperament. But you don’t want to royally piss him off. And Plato has done that. Plato is a tiny man, but very powerful…physically and financially. Cunning and creative, he kills people for any reason…or no reason at all…and he’s been disposing of a lot of people around Reacher over the last couple days. And, now…he is coming to South Dakota himself…in the middle of a massive winter storm. Plato seems to be an unstoppable force who hasn’t yet met his irresistable object…though there are forces amassing in every direction to take him down. And we’re pulled into this countdown…61 hours until it all comes down.

You’ll feel the chill in your bones in this one, set in the 30-below-zero temperatures that few places in North America can offer. The climate is a huge part of the story, but there’s much more…including an abandoned military installation, a plucky senior citizen who is a critical witness to a crime, and even a bit of phone romance. Along the way, we’re treated into some great tidbits from Reacher’s past that help make him the man he is today.

Good fun, and as always…deftly read by Dick Hill.

Two thumbs up!

I picked up the new David Baldacci book last week. I enjoyed Divine Justice last year and thought this might be worth a listen. It’s an interesting book, centered around an organization that hunts down and kills Nazi leaders who had escaped justice. However, after they have killed all the Nazis, they move on to newer psychopaths. Their current target is Fedir Kuchin, the butcher of Kiev…and he is definitely one bad dude. Along the way, however, they encounter a representative of another secret agency, who appears to have similar goals to theirs.

There’s a fair amount of intrigue, a lot of action (some of it fairly grotesque), a little romance and sex and a solid story here. I wasn’t quite as entertained as I had been with his previous book. It wasn’t a waste of time, but I’m always hoping to stumble across something exceptional, and this one didn’t reach that level for me. Still, it was a decent read, and even somewhat thought-provoking.

Ron McLarty read this one. I had enjoyed him previously, and he does have a great quality to his voice. However, he was in just a bit over his head this time. One had the sense that he didn’t have time to do the small things that you would expect from a top-shelf audio production. His accents for the main characters (especially the Brits) slipped completely away at times…so it became confusing as to who was speaking. Also, he clearly was “tuned out” at a number of points in the reading…because he missed the point of the sentence…leaving the listener to go back and reconstruct the words in their own head to make sense of them. McLarty is a pretty good reader. So either he was distracted, or more likely, on a tight timeline. Whatever the cause, it became a B-grade production for me.

I can’t give this two thumbs up, because it didn’t have a “wow factor” for me. But I did enjoy the book, and I will return again to Baldacci, because I enjoy his blend of solid storytelling, plot twists and behind-the-scenes info on intelligence ops.

I’m a big Ted Dekker fan, and I’ve read nearly everything he’s written. Some have been downright amazing books and some have been good…but I’ve enjoyed every one so far. I would rate this one as “just good”. I still think its worth the listen, but for me it was missing that special magic that would elevate it to the status of his great reads.

The overall plot is rather standard fare for the serial killer genre. Someone is killing women and displaying the bodies in unique ways…leaving clues for investigators. In other words, he’s making a statement…and waiting for someone who can decode them. FBI special agent Brad Raines and his team are on the case. So far, it could be a rather typical TV drama. However, Dekker throws in some very interesting wrinkles…one of which is a narrative about the nature of beauty and value, and the other has to do with the nature of mental illness. All serial killers, by nature, suffer from some degree of mental illness…but in this case, some of those struggling with mental illness are also engaged in trying to unlock the riddle of the killings as well. Not twisted guys like Hannibal Lecter, but good folks…who happen to be both brilliant and affected.

Fortunately, Hachete Audio was able to get the gifted character actor John Glover to handle the narration. Glover (who often plays brilliantly crazed bad guys and is probably best known as Lionel Luthor in Smallville) deftly handles not only the relatively straight reading but also brings a great deal of life and even humor with his portrayal of some of the characters, keeps the book moving right along. I had never heard any of his audio book work before, but it seems that he has done about a dozen others, including some by Stephen King and James Patterson.

As I said, it’s a solid read, and I would still gladly listen again…but I found it a bit overly wordy in some of the sections of musings on the nature of beauty, where it seemed to drag on and lose focus…and the ending came off as a little too light and happy for me (the musical selection at the end didn’t help in this regard, either).

I love nice suprises. And this book was a very nice surprise. First of all, a bit about the author. He’s a screenwriter, and did the screenplays for movies like Troy, Stay, The Kite Runner and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He’s also married to actress Amanda Peet (The Whole Nine Yards, Syriana).

Now to the story. It’s the tale of two young Russian men (boys, really) and their adventure during the seige of Leningrad (1941-1944). Lev Beniov is a quiet, chess-playing Jewish boy (and the son of a poet) who stays behind in the city while his mother and sister escape to the relative safety of a country home owned by relatives. He meets Kolya, a handsome young deserter from the Red Army, in jail. Together, they are given the opportunity to escape severe punishment if they can go out and find a dozen eggs for his daughter’s wedding cake.

What follows is a haunting, delightful, fascinating journey which lasts the entire allotted time for their quest. There is the constant cold and hunger, plus adventure, love, lust, terror, violence…and above all, a developing friendship between the reckless young solider and his cautious younger accomplice. A word of warning: Because this story is written from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy, it’s filled with sexuality (albeit mostly in the forms of longings). So if you are put off by those things, you might want to avoid this one. But if you listen, you will be drawn to these two very different characters…and to the descriptions of the environment will have you feeling the weariness, hunger and bone-chilling cold.

The messenger for this tale is Ron Perlman (Beauty and The Beast, Hellboy). While he doesn’t do as many voice characterizations as some other readers do (ironic for an accomplished actor), he handled the Russian affect beautifully…and words just roll off his tongue. Not to mention he has a wonderful vocal timbre…so it’s a real pleasure to listen to, despite the 8.5 hour length. Perlman, who turns 60 this year (amazing that he can still pull off a physical character like Hellboy!), brings to the table a breadth of experience in voice work (I was unaware of this until I checked his Wikipedia page). I’d love to listen to him read again.

The quality of this Penguin Audio production is very good. It features a some classical music during a few breaks. I only caught one missed edit, fairly early in the book. So it didn’t detract much.

Two thumbs up for this one!

I’ve always enjoyed Dean Koontz. I haven’t read a whole lot of his books…but probably a good half-dozen of them over the years, and none have ever been disappointments. However, he’s managed to leave me disappointed this time. Not because this book didn’t have all the elements of a really great book. It did. But simply because it never fully realizes its potential.

Koontz gives a great setup. Lots of characters with rich histories…many of them rooted in deep pain. The gentle furniture maker who used to be a military assassin, the dedicated veterinarian who was the victim of mental and physical abuse for 10 years as a child, the serial killer who’s only once come close to being caught and is on the hunt again…as a work for hire, and the twin who is on a gruesome mission to “become” his brother. All strong stuff. And then we’ve got the overriding mystery…two nearly-indescribable creatures who appear out of thin air and display nobler-than-human behavior. Why are they here? Where did they come from? And will they become guinea pigs in the labs of big, bad Homeland Security?

This really is a compelling set of questions…and it takes about 7 hours and 45 minutes of the 8-hour audio book to get to this place. But then…Koontz seems to weary of the story, or run out of ideas, or something. Whatever the cause, he neatly wraps up many (but not all) of the questions he’s raised so quickly that it belies the (at times plodding) pace of the earlier parts of the book. Personally, I was left wanting. There’s a gentle-enough sensibility about the book…I’d even describe it as beautiful at points…that I can’t believe this was a cynical attempt on the author’s part to provide a setup and then not finish the job…but it comes up so short of his usual work that I still had to consider the possibility.

As to the narration, that was a disappointment as well…although I suppose if you’re going to have a book with little payoff, it’s probably best to deliver it via a narrator who provides the same. Jeffrey Cummings’s performance here is, at best, serviceable. His enunciation is overly-labored, some of his pronunications of words are odd, his characterizations are weak-to-mediocre, and the straight read simply lacks heft. Let’s face it: Not everyone can excel at this kind of work, and he simply doesn’t. I don’t know if he’s new and will get better…or if this is as good as he gets…but I found myself having to go back and listen to passages again and again and again…because he simply didn’t deliver them in an engaging manner, and my attention was constantly drifting.

So…I’m afraid I’m going to have this one about a 2-star rating out of 5. Intriguing, but a disappointment in the end.

I had previously listened (and enjoyed) another of Trevanian’s works: The Eiger Sanction (which I knew mainly because Clint Eastwood had made it into a movie, though I’d never seen it). And I like thrillers, so I thought I’d give this one a spin (since the word was that it was his best-received work). Having heard it now, I can understand why. This was a heck of a good read….interesting on many levels, despite the fact that it was published 30 years ago.

Nikolai Hel is one of the world’s foremost assassins…or, should I say, he was one of the world’s foremost assassins? He’s been retired now for two years, and has devoted all his energy to pursuit of a lifestyle of “shibumi” (a Japanese word meaning something akin to “a formidable contentedness”). However, the niece of an old friend shows up one day on his doorstep asking him to avenge the murder of some of her friends. Will he, or won’t he? I suppose this question is somewhat of a foregone conclusion…and, frankly, it’s one of the least interesting parts of the story. Instead, we’re treated to a detailed background of both Hel’s life since childhood and the murky world of espionage…and how much its driven by money, rather than ideology (in this case, oil money). And both parts of this background are really interesting….especially Hel’s history…of Russian lineage, raised in China, by an occupying Japanese general.

Because the book is 30 years old, and deals with a number of issues (such as computers) which have been transformed by technology in the interim, there is a certain datedness to it. And there is a somewhat cynical view of Americanism which was popular in the Seventies, in the wake of Watergate…which, while it still exists today, has found a somewhat different mode of expression. That being said, I didn’t really feel that either of those detracted much from the story. Trevanian, a history professor who died in the past few years, used this canvas to do a bit of showing off…of his vast knowledge of various cultures (Chinese, Japanese and Basque…among others)…but his sense of humor (especially as expressed in Hel’s Basque caving partner) is pretty delightful and irrepressible. And there’s a sense here of it being a sendup of spy mysteries…and yet, it’s hefty enough that it can’t be dismissed as some sort of joke.

As to the narration…it’s interesting that I pointed out Joe Barrett’s Eiger Sanction narration, in part, because of his excellent handling of German and French. This time, his limits were really tested. I found his straight read very solid, and his Japanese and French accents still quite admirable…but some of them were just really distractably bad (the word “laughably” sounds harsh…but it did make me laugh a few times). Still, it’s not like I could have done better…and I’m not sure who could have. This book was so involved and deep…and the palette so broad, that, even at only 16 hours…I felt like it went on forever (in the best sense of the word…I tend to enjoy long, involved stories)…and despite some of the flawed voice characterizations, I still really enjoyed it.

Shibumi. Two thumbs up!

This is my second Vince Flynn book…and I must say, I think I liked it even better than the first. It’s possible that part of that is because its a sequel to my previous listen and now I know some of the characters better. But somehow this one was much easier to follow allow in my imagination, and I found it really hard to turn it off for any extended period of time.

Mitch Rapp is a hard-bitten CIA operative. He tortures and kills people and breaks things. Think…a more articulate, more thoughtful version of Jack Bauer. There was an attack on Washington in the previous book that killed a couple hundred people, including some highly-visible politicians. And attitudes are now shifting in Washington about whether or not “the dirty work” of counterterrorism should be tolerated, or even endorse. Nothing like a battle hitting close to home to change the debate.

This story follows the pursuit of the three surviving members of the terrorist cell that pulled off the attack. It ranges halfway across the country, and involves a lot of espionage, international intrigue…even traitorous American citizens. Definitely one I didn’t want to put down.

Yes, my favorite audio book reader (George Guidall) read it. He’s the best I’ve ever heard…and one of the most experienced…I saw recently that he’s done 850 audio books now…and I’ve discovered that there are others like me who buy audio books just because Guidall is the narrator. I know there are plenty of others that are good. But from his straight read to his character voices…he’s the guy I’d rather have read me a story than anyone else I’ve heard to-date. If you’ve never heard him, you might want to invest a few bucks and try him out…or at least visit Audible.com and listen to some samples of books he’s read!

Never heard of Hosp before, but bought the book because I just can’t get enough of George Guidall’s narration. The book turns out to be a pleasant surprise.

Scott Finn is a Boston lawyer who left his big law-firm job a couple years ago and has hung out his own shingle…dealing with some of the seamier aspects of lawyering. One day, he’s approached by someone associated with his old firm. They need someone to take on an awkward pro bono case, and they think Finn is the man. Oh…and the reason he should be interested? There potentially a multi-million dollar payoff if the case is won.

He’s initially reluctant, and is, in fact, ready to back out of the case completely when the fellow who came to meet him is brutally murdered…leading Finn to believe that there’s significant merit to the case after all. But as is the case with stories of this kind…there are passages, leading to other passages, leading to other passages. Pretty soon, he’s facing down a gang who does their dirty work with machetes…and things aren’t looking so good for his side.

I found myself fully engaged in the story…and while I found the final plot twist to have been telegraphed earlier in the book, there were so many other things to keep up with as it unfolded that I really didn’t mind. It ended up being quite the satisfying read.

And, what more can I say about George Guidall? I think it’s getting pretty bad when I am shopping primarily for books that he reads. He’s THAT good. Great characterization…and simply the perfect voice for a storytelling narrative. George is the man!

I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up another David Hosp book in the future…especially if George Guidall was the narrator!