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VICIOUS CIRCLE (A Joe Pickett Novel) by C.J. Box

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Published in 2017 by G.P. Putnam's Sons. In 2015's Endangered , C.J. Box introduced his readers to the Cates family. The Cates family was a dangerous group by anyone's standards - likely to poach wildlife, cheat business partners or maybe just get in a fight for the sheer fun of it. The most dangerous members of the family are the mom and the golden child Dallas. Dallas is also a champion professional rodeo star and should have been a real celebrity in his hometown of Saddlestring, except for the fact that no one can stand him or his family. Joe Pickett helped break up the Cates family crime ring and in the process most of the family was killed. Dallas Cates and his mother went to jail. His mother is serving a life sentence. In the process of her family being taken down she broke her neck and is now paralyzed. Joe Pickett has a problem. Dallas Cates has just been released from jail and it's clear that he wants revenge. He hasn't made a move yet, but it is obvi

THE AVENGERS: EVERYBODY WANTS to RULE the WORLD (audiobook) by Dan Abnett

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Published by GraphicAudio in 2015 Read by a multicast Duration: about 6 hours Captain America is called to Berlin to uncover a Hydra plot. Iron Man is called to Washington, D.C. to confront Ultron. Thor is in Siberia confronting a magical threat of immense proportions. Dr. Banner is investigating a mystery of his own with SHIELD. And, Black Widow and Hawkeye have their own problems confronting A.I.M. The Avengers are each pulled into their separate top-level emergencies - each of which could result in a worldwide disaster. Soon enough, the Avengers discover that each of these threats has arisen in response to a much larger threat - if only they can figure out what it is in time... Usually, I really enjoy GraphicAudio's adaptations of comic book novels. Their use of sound effects and multiple actors remind me of an old-time radio show. But, this one was so crowded with 5 separate plot lines that none of them were properly developed and the whole thing seemed half-baked thr

ROGUE STATE: FRACTURED STATE, BOOK 2 (audiobook) by Steven Konkoly

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P ublished in 2017 by Brilliance Audio. Read by Timothy Andres Pabon. Duration: 9 hours, 21 minutes. Unabridged The action surrounding embattled water engineer Nathan Fisher and his family in the year 2035 continues in Rogue State , the second book in this series . In the first book, Nathan witnessed an act of terrorism designed to egg on a tense situation between the government of California and the federal government. Now, he and his family are being hunted by a mysterious group funded by a group of oligarchs that are determined to manipulate this situation to their advantage. In the second book of this series the action factor gets ratcheted way up. In many ways, the main story line of the book is one giant chase scene across a series of rural and urban desert landscapes - but it is a heck of a chase scene. We also learn a lot more about the bad guys and the messed up version of America that Konkoly has created for this book (which I found at least as interesting as the chase s

FRACTURED STATE: A POST-APOCALYPTIC THRILLER (Rogue State Series #1) (audiobook) by Steven Konkoly

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Published by Brilliance Audio in 2016 Read by Timothy Andres Pabon Duration: 10 hours, 9 minutes Unabridged In the year 2035 America is almost unrecognizable. Environmental collapse due the abuse of aquifers and mountain run-off in the West has caused the governments of many Western states to practically collapse. The highway systems have become "No Man's Land" and the Arizona border has practically been overrun by drug cartels who often act as a brutal de facto government in some areas. California has escaped this fate due to a strict resource protection regimen that limits travel, and strictly watches how much water and electricity each household consumes. The relationship between the strict (yet successful) government of California and the often ineffectual federal government is strained to the point that there is an open and active movement that is pushing for California to secede. Political assassinations and the sabotaging of a critical power plant make the pol

THE GOOD COP (Carter Ross #4) (audiobook) by Brad Parks

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A Review of the Audiobook Published in 2013 by Dreamscape Media, LLC. Read by Adam Verner Duration: 9 hours, 18 minutes Unabridged Carter Ross is an excellent reporter in the newsroom of a slowly dying newspaper in Newark, New Jersey. When he hears of the death of a police officer, he immediately rushes to the family and convinces them to talk to him about the officer and the kind of life he lived. Ross is certain that he has the makings of a top-notch human interest story - the kind of story that he would be proud if the family saved it for the officer's tiny baby son to read someday. But, when Ross calls in the good news to his editor he is immediately waved off of the story because the Newark police are telling everyone that this officer killed himself after he got drunk on the job. But, that sounds fishy to Ross so he starts his own investigation into the case - and soon he finds that he has more suspects than he can possibly investigate... Brad Parks has a way of mak

RUEFUL REGRET (audiobook) by Steve Vernon

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Published by Stark Raven Press in 2017. Narrated by Charles Craig. Duration: 3 hours. Unabridged. Bass Clayton is a bounty killer, basically a paid assassin, in the Old West. He has had no qualms about doing this job - at least he didn't until he tried to kill Silver Grimes. He fired blindly into Grimes' cabin with a shotgun, wounding Grimes and splattering Grimes' girlfriend all over the bed. Clayton walks away from his bounty hunter gig and becomes the town drunk in a town called Rueful Regret. His plan to slowly drink himself into oblivion is going well until Grimes walks into the bar... I did not enjoy this audiobook. The book was full of too many folksy expressions and was surprisingly slow-paced considering that it was just a three hour audiobook. But, the worst aspect of the book was an overly detailed description of animal cruelty and bestiality that did nothing to advance the plot. All it did was provide a few minutes of padding in an already slow story