The Quiet Game by Greg Iles Pages: 612
Published by Brilliance Audio on December 12, 2013
Genres: adult, contemporary, Law & Crime, Mystery & Detective, Political
Source: Borrowed from Library
The first thriller in the New York Times No.1 bestselling series featuring Penn Cage: a prosecutor in a corrupt system, a husband whose wife has died, and a father who must protect his daughter. ‘An engrossing, page-turning ride’ (Jeffery Deaver).
Penn Cage is no stranger to death. As a Houston prosecutor he’s sent sixteen men to death row – and now he’s lost his wife to cancer.
Returning home to Natchez, Mississippi with his only daughter, Penn seeks a gentler life. No chance. After discovering that his father is being blackmailed over a long-forgotten homicide by the killer he never turned in, Penn is soon up to his neck in the town’s murky undercurrents of passion, power and racial tension.
This is a community with a dark past. A place where a thirty-year-old crime lies buried. A place where everyone plays the quiet game but Penn Cage cannot stay silent.
The Quiet Game is the first book in the Penn Gage series. He is a prosecutor turned author, turned detective (kind of). I thought the mystery in the Quiet Game was really compelling, but the audiobook narrator kind of took away from the story. He did about 3 or 4 of the voices well, but all of the other voices sounded comically bad. He could not do a woman’s voice at all. And the story is a serious one, so it was distracting. But if you could get past the bad female and secondary character voices, you can’t help but get sucked into the story.
There is a decades old civil rights murder in this small southern town. It is a cold case and because of some meddling from a journalist and some help from Penn Gage, the case is about to get re-opened. There are national forces involved and the whole thing gets crazy really quickly. It was a pretty good murder mystery and there was a lot of legal stuff going on. Most of the legal aspects of the story were accurate, but some of the trial parts were a bit sensationalized. But nothing too bad.
The story is very light on the romance (but that might change later in the series) and very heavy on the action. It made for a very fast paced read and the audiobook listening flew by. I listened to the whole thing on a one day car trip. Everyone in the car liked the story and it was engaging enough and interesting to make everyone want to keep listening. I think this would be a better book to read, because the characters were interesting and the mystery was really well done. I didn’t really like any of female characters, but there were plenty of male characters to like. If you like action packed murder mysteries with a strong male lead, check out the Penn Gage series.
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kindlemom1
Sorry the audio wasn’t better because overall it sounds like this was a great mystery!
Michelle @ Book Briefs
The mystery was really interesting. Probably a better book to read than listen to/
Christy
Oh no. Yeah, the narrator can either make or kill the story. This sounds interesting, but I’ll stay away from the audio.
Michelle @ Book Briefs
The book would be worth a read though because the mystery was really cool. And his guy voices were fine, but I just kept laughing everytime he did a woman or child.
danielle hammelef
I’ve tried audio books before and have ended up tuning them out because the narrator just doesn’t engage me like reading the book does. Maybe I’ll find one that is done well. It doesn’t sound like this one is.