…I would have given it five stars. More on that later. It was good to see one of Tal Bauer’s books converted to audio format. Hush was the first of his books I ever read, and immediately became a fan. His narratives are descriptive, visceral, and very visual. He writes really good political thrillers. He has a talent for putting the reader right in the middle of the action. I felt I was there with Mike and Tom at the Capitol building. I felt every emotion, right along with the characters. I would very much like to see more of his work in audio format, particularly the ‘Executive Office’ series. We just need to find someone else to read it.
Joel Leslie’s narration of this novel bites. It bites hard. He sounds like Joe Friday narrating an episode of “Dragnet”. Either that, or he thinks he’s Captain Kirk (aka: William Shatner forgot– his lines– again). It was kind of awful, with stretched out words, inappropriate and misplaced pauses, overacted lines. He is, I admit, good with accents, but unfortunately, that did not make up for his ham-handed and stilted reading of the narrative. He did a particularly bad job with the character of Mike Lucciano. Did he do him as Joe Friday because he’s a cop? I know of no cops who talk like that. Sorry, Joel, you blew it. He did do a good job with Kris, though. I will give him that. Still, if not for the narration, it would have gotten five stars. Probably should have given it three, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do that to a Tal Bauer book. All in all, it was still a good listen.