Review: Crooked River by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, read by Jefferson Mays
Crooked River is book 19 in the addictive Pendergast series of Mystery Thrillers by best-selling duo of authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I’ve been listening to these audiobooks since the beginning, when the narrators were Dick Hill and Scott Brick, both of them fantastic voiceover artists, but for the past decade the stories were brought to us by the extremely talented actor Rene Auberjonois. He ended up rerecording even a few previous novels and to date only the first three audiobooks in the series are not performed by him…
Sadly, Rene Auberjonois passed away recently and both Star Trek fans and Pendergast fans will miss him dearly. We are left with his stellar performances and he will live forever in our hearts!
Crooked River reminds me of the old-school Pendergast novels, like Still Life with Crows, which you can listen anytime performed by Rene… The story follows once again FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast who after he reluctantly accepts to take a look at a truely disturbing crime scene is pulled into a dangerus investigation.
The action is fast paced and moves swiftly from a quiet beach resort to Asia, to Mexico and so on, but at the same time a new dilemma hunts Agent Pendergast and those helping him at every step of the way.
Filled with returning beloved characters and new ones, beautifully written and extremely addictive, Crooked River is another unputdownable, over the top adventure from a team that never disappoints. The only thing bad about it, if I can call it that, is that it ends…
I want to congratulate whoever is responsible for casting Jefferson Mays to record this audiobook! He does an unbelievable job in slipping seemlessly into this role. It’s clear that Mr. Mays has listened to Rene performing the other books in this series and that he is doing his best to emulate Rene’s acting style and is a huge sign of respect made towards us, the fans, the listeners.
What I dredded it could be a painful transition, from Rene to a new actor, has revealed to be a painless experience and for that I can only but congratulate and give a big thumbs up to Jefferson Mays for his passion and dedication in bringing us this such a great performance!
So, if you like Thrillers, Mysteries, Suspense or Crime stories, you can’t go wrong with Crooked River or with any other book in this series. Now, all we need to do is to wait another year for the next one, book 20!
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Sometimes, I post reviews at the author, narrator or publisher’s request, so, if you are in need of assistance in finding the perfect narrator for your book or just want to have a review on my blog, do get in touch.
Victor Dima
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