Hard to Get Into but Worth the Effort

I found it hard to get into the book but once I did I could not put it down.
It’s unique well written and well performed.
Worth reading if you enjoy something a bit different

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Really enjoyable.

The suspense and the action was great. It really kept you on that edge of your seat.
Would have liked a more fulfilling ending to the story. But overall very good. Especially for an older book.

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Riveting

Loved the story and the narrators. Very exciting, visual and believable. Good writing too.
Highly recommend.

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My first Robert Crais….

Listen and I enjoyed it. The ending was a bit more predictable and a bit rushed but I stayed with the book all throughout. Narration flowed well it was an easy listen. I am a huge Connelly fan but I’ve read or listened to everything he has written to date so I needed a new author to explore. Just a comment for Audible members this book was on my Plus options which was great I didn’t spend a dime to find a new author

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1 person found this helpful

great read

suspenseful and great character development. amazing narration. will definately not be my last book by this author.

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Superb

My first Crais book. “Hostage” was excellent...I could not “put it down”. Listened to whole book in just over a day! The pace of action was superb. The narrator brought each character to life. I will now look for other Robert Crais books.

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Exciting read!!

Kept me completely riveted beginning to end! The narrator was excellent also! Will definitely check out more of this authors books….

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loved it

Robert crais knows how to make em. be they stand alone or chain series they always keep me tuned in from start to finish

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'Passable' At Best

Robert Crais provides an adequately entertaining story starting with a conflicted big-city hostage negotiator/cum small-town-police-chief trying to excercise ghosts while confronting a trio of desperate young criminals that botched a holdup. The scenario is "out-of-the-headlines" plausible, character motivations (mostly) make sense, and Crais is very good at building tension and suspense.
Unfortunately, the pacing is awkward (too breakneck), the writing - despite fairly good description - is often sophomoric ("Dennis knew the cops would put a cap in his brother's Pussy Face."), the dialogue is straight-up chuckleworthy at times ("'I'm going to eat your heart' the big one whispered"), and the story descends from a creditable psychological thought experiment into a silly cartoonish plot involving "dirty" accounting, the L.A Mafia, and - incomprehensively - kidnapping mob assassins. Oh. And the smalltown cop has Special Forces training because.. well.. because OF COURSE he does.
My eyes actually rolled at times while listening to this tale.

Reader James Daniels's commitment to this project, on the other hand, is impressive. Admirably, his cadence, timbre, diction, pacing, and especially tone are exemplary. More praiseworthy, however, is his voice-acting: realistic, distinguishable, and largely free of injudicious accents. Daniels also holds his head away from the microphone when delivering shouted dialogue (instead of "whisper-shouting") and makes excellent use of voice modulation for dialogue over the Telephone or Police Radios.
The narration is thus unspectacular but notably above-average. Brilliance Audio further provide solid technical support (although the dead-air at the end of chapters is uncomfortably long). Altogether? "Adequate".

It's unfortunate that the decent production standards can't make up for pedestrian writing. This recording of 'Hostage' rates 4.5 stars out of 10.. and that's generous (a paper or eBook version of this story would be a *painful* read). If you can get this audiobook as part of the 'Plus' initiative, it's not crazy to give it a try.. I guess.. but if Audible asks for a Credit, you're an idiot if you spend it.

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just too much

the original idea is okay but when a serial killer and the mafia arrives

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