Narrated by Patrick Lawlor and Renée Raudman
“Passions will flare as everyone close to the deception finds themselves fighting for survival.”
Dark of Night
It’s a world I became pretty heavily invested in as I first read the books then listened in audio format. This one was released in January, 2009, and my original review was written as soon as I finished it in audio – about 2 weeks later. Because it features Renée Raudman, I’m dusting it off and rewriting it for AudioGals, and I’ve spent some great moments doing a spot of relistening, feeling the addiction start to creep back in for the rush that is Brockmann’s writing.
As the publisher’s blurb predicted, passions did flare, as a large number of Brockmann fans practically took to the streets in angry protest over this book. It picks up where Into the Fire left off, in a long prologue that is actually the end of the Dark of Night‘s tale. It reveals that the big HEA is a couple that a lot of now-former fans publicly denounced. And if you want to just read this one to see what the controversy is all about, I’m afraid you won’t get it – it would be like trying to start Grey’s Anatomy in Season 4, episode 8. You’ll need a cheat sheet to keep up.
Who wants Jimmy Nash dead? The basic premise is that someone is after them all – with Jimmy Nash being their main target – and there is a scramble all over the place to figure out who that someone is and eliminate him. It’s related to Nash’s involvement in The Agency, a secret US governmental Black Ops department that may have a rogue employee who has been giving bogus assignments. The story ranged from Boston, where Sophia’s dad is dying, to San Diego where Nash is holed up in Robin and Jules’s safe house, healing from gunshot wounds and hiding behind his faked death. All the Troubleshooters are scattered across the country, and it is pretty much non-stop action adventure with some hot stuff to boot. I’m not going to spoil it by saying who gets the HEA in this one, but all the characters get a moment to shine.
This is the second pairing of Patrick Lawlor and Renée Raudman narrating the series, and they perform the next two as well. Lawlor reads the chapters written from the male POV, and Raudman reads the chapters from the female POV. It’s really cool how they both chose to narrate – even their narrative voice was done in the character’s POV – if reading from Tracy’s POV, Tracy’s thoughts are given Tracy’s voice in both narrative and dialogue. In all dialogue, each character had a specific, consistent and easily identified voice. This works so well because of Brockmann’s writing technique she calls “deep POV” which I’ve written more about in my article It Takes Two, Baby.
Lawlor gives it his usual sterling best – his delivery sounds as though he is telling this story to you while you are both chatting somewhere comfy, maybe the corner coffee shop. While his natural pitch is not basso profundo, his characters are well differentiated by pitch both basso and higher, timbre, pacing, color – that is, by every good tool in every great narrator’s belt. Raudman is the perfect foil for him – she gives as good as his best as well. She uses a consistent narrative for each female’s POV, and she does very well with delivering men’s dialogue, not only by lowering the pitch but also changing other, small details with her voice. She voices a wide range of emotions and convincingly conveys the excitement, terror and suspense of the story as well as the love and occasional humor throughout.
Did Brockmann jump the shark with this story? First, no. Just, no. She continued the lives of the Troubleshooters, just as one does with a long-running, well-loved TV series. I was intrigued, entertained, scared, on the edge of my seat, and totally convinced the characters were all acting, well, in character.
Melinda
Narration: A
Book Content: B
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence: Graphic
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
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