Based on a series with many readers and high reviews, I purchased Data Jack in the WhisperSync format. Reading the commercial briefs about the flavor of the Detective Jack Stratton, series, I expected a more hardened protagonist – maybe like Mike Connelly’s Harry Bosch. Much to my surprise I found the characters to be rather naive. As a former military operative and police detective, Jack seemed to be overly innocent. In my opinion, Jack’s past deeds and the current context of the drama didn’t seem to match either Jack or Alice as characters.
I mostly listened to the entire novel as performed by Andrew Tell. Tell’s an excellent performer with a range of voices. However, his voice characterizations of both Jack and Alice made them seem almost like high-schoolers cast in a serious crime drama. Because the characters seemed to be portrayed in such a young way, I took an intermission to check reviews to see if I missed something – thinking this series might be a PG or G crime series for younger readers. Anecdotally, one reviewer’s comment stood out: “Jack’s romantic relationship with ‘ eplacement’ is PG at worst and the language is mostly G rated. The fact that the author can write a good mystery novel without resorting to gratuitous sex and foul language illustrates his talent.” Not that I need bad language or gratuitous sex but I expected a little more hardened flavor to the book
I’m not going to rate this book poorly because it’s not my cup of tea. Data Jack was well-written and the story did have both mystery and action. Rather, the blame for not liking the book should be mostly mine. Accordingly, I’ll try my best to be fair in the “stars” portion of my review.