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City of Lies

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City of Lies

By: R J Ellory
Narrated by: Alan Nebelthau
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John Harper has always been alone. His mother died when he was just seven and he was raised in New York by an aunt he barely knew. He never even met his father - a man who died shortly after he was born.

After leaving the Big Apple as soon as he was old enough, his life consisted of one moderately successful book, a collection of affectionately received newspaper columns and a comfortable existence in Miami. Then everything changes. A robbery goes wrong - and turns John's existence on its head. It seems that his father didn't die all those years ago...

©2006 R J Ellory Publications Ltd (P)2008 Recorded Books LLC Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense New York Fiction
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I really enjoyed this book by RJ Ellory as well as the narrative. The story weaved together well and I enjoyed the way the author brought the reader along. I was interested in the story and what happened to the characters. The ending had quite a few twists and I did not expect these but found them interesting and gave me another perspective on the characters. Would recommend.

Much enjoyed

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It's a slow starter as there's a lot of building up of the characters, but once it gets going, the pace gets faster and faster resulting in a tense crescendo of twists and turns. The characterisation is excellent and you really feel what the main character is going through. Definitely worth a listen!

Enjoyable

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I am a fan of R.J Ellory and have all of his books and read 80% of them, however, no matter what, I cannot gel with this book, I tried twice to read it, and for whatever reason stopped early on, so saw the audible version and tried it last year and didnt get far. I tried it again this week and have now finally given up.
The narration is really poor and flat, but not as annoying as the constant use of the main characters name, "talk to me John", "listen to me John", "you have to John"," trust me John", "come back John", John, John, John, John John.... drove me crazy. also it might just be me, but I don't recall ever using someones full name in generally conversation to address them.it happens a lot in this but, it did not flow at all. rant over.

couldnt finish it.... despite trying 4 times.

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...maybe bit single-tracked and predictable in terms of the story progress, if not of the eponymous lies.
I liked it but unlike Quiet Belief I don't think I'd ever pick this up for a re-read.

enjoyable, compelling

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Having listened to 'A Simple Act of Violence' by the same author I guess I should have known what to expect but I wanted to see if, perhaps, different characters brought out other aspects in his writing. Alas, no. The story itself is not bad and, much as it goes against my normal stance, perhaps listening to the abridged version of the book may prove to be more worthwhile but just don't be expecting any plot twists - what you think is going to happen does happen. The fact that the author takes 18 hours to tell this is the real problem with this book. The amount of times the dialogue goes along the lines 'What do you think?' 'What do you mean, what do I think?' 'I want to know what you think.' 'Think? You want to know what I think? Think about what?' 'You know what.' 'Do I? Really? You really think I have a clue what it is you're talking about? Why don't you tell me.' 'You want me to tell you?' 'Yes, I want you to tell.....' and so on and so forth. It is one of the most frustrating books I have listened to and the reason beyond all this protracted dialogue is to pad out the obvious plot before it takes you to exactly the place you were expecting.

Obvious and overdone

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