MAY 2017
AUDIO BOOK REVIEWS
by Jonathan Lowe
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Okay,
I know everyone is waiting for this book, but the
best thing one can say about INTO THE WATER
by Paula Hawkins is that the narrators of
the audiobook edition are first rate, and succeed
in separating the many voices (ie. characters) in
a way that the print edition of the book cannot. The
story starts in the past, with a suspected witch being
killed, and moves to the present for the duration,
with small town mysteries being amplified by buried
secrets foreshadowed throughout. The tone and multiple
narrators reminded me of a better novel by
Adele
Griffin titled THE UNFINISHED LIFE OF ADDISON STONE.
Hawkins is, of course, author of the wildly
successful THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN,
made into a movie. This, her second novel, will no
doubt be a bestseller because of that, and probably
a movie too. But not only is this novel inferior to
her first, it is merely average for the genre. (Not
outstanding.) The prose is not polished, either. Hawkins
likes to write “his eyes slid off my face”
rather than “his gaze.” Instead of original
and memorable descriptions, such as Alafair Burke
would use, we get boots “caked” in mud.
And overuse of the F word. There is resonance in making
the narrators sound real in dialogue, using cliches,
but in exposition one should be more subtle. The final
chapters seem like postscripts without the big reveal
or twist many might think would be coming. More of
a whimper than a bang. An interesting, offbeat, cosy
English mystery. Not a blockbuster. Kudos to narrators
Rachel Bavidge, Sophie Aldred, Daniel Weyman, Laura
Aikman, and Imogen Church. They’ve
got the accents down pat, and with proper emotional
resonance.
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Speaking
of water, ICE GHOSTS by Paul Watson
is the true adventure story of the search for the
lost Franklin expedition to find a NW passage through
the Arctic in 1845. Two ships, the HMS Erebus and
the HMS Terror were lost, and only later discovered
in 2014 and 2016, respectively. An eloquent account--in
chronological time--is given, illuminating the entire
story from both then and now. Included are the many
failed expeditions, some independent and others financed
by billionaires. The mystery and suspense elements
are not exaggerated as in some Hollywood movie, but
rather inherent in the text, masterfully read
by Malcolm Hillgartner for Blackstone. One
of my favorite narrators, he is simply a delight to
listen to.
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Next,
Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal is a Harvard grad and editor
in chief at Kaiser Health News. Her book AN
AMERICAN SICKNESS is a startling look at
how hospitals have learned to break the rules by overbilling
patients and taxpayers for services and ancillary
items they may not know are coming, including “facility
fees” to use spaces, physical therapy by the
minute, and every minor item used in treatments (from
toothpicks to suppositories at up to 100 times their
cost.) Specialists who are merely in the room or are
not known to be outside the network of insurance carried
by the patient can bill at will. Independent consultants
can add fees to bills, with unneeded tests generating
a new round of fees each time. Horror stories are
recounted of patients bankrupted by medical bills,
some of whom thought they were covered by insurance.
Narrated with believable urgency by actress
Nancy Linari, the audiobook reveals just
how tricky the medical industry has become to recoup
profits lost for treating uninsured people in ERs
as required by law. ER costs have skyrocketed too,
as more people are coming in with gunshot wounds or
heart attacks, living on the edge and overweight with
poor diets. Will privatizing medical care help? Maybe
not. Private ambulance services are abusively high,
while many specialists demand higher and higher wages
and fee compensations…some living in the Hamptons
and commuting by private planes like Hedge Fund managers.
Even charities that support research “are in
bed with Big Pharma.” Then there is the drug
industry’s link to the junk food industry (also
with a foothold in hospitals, schools, movie theaters,
etc.) Americans pay every which way from Sunday, only
to be overbilled for funeral expenses. All to avoid
eating right, exercising, and learning the facts from
books like this. The “security” scare
industries are not just the Pentagon and Homeland
agencies, they extend to health care with the desire
to be “safe at any cost.” Well, here are
the costs of not reading and speaking out on the reforms
she recommends: MASSIVE. Rosenthal offers real solutions
to this crisis. Will people listen? Recommended for
anyone with a beating heart. |
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Finally, I was stunned this past week by learning that
Ron Howard’s second season of Breakthroughs, airing
this month, includes one show about using the deactivated
HIV virus to treat cancer. This was the premise of my
novel THE METHUSELAH GENE, except that
involved using HIV to fight aging. The kicker? In Ron
Howard’s first season he talked about the science
of fighting aging. (He is also involved in the Einstein
series on NatGeo, based on EINSTEIN: HIS LIFE
AND UNIVERSE by Walter Isaacson, read on audio
by the late, great Edward Herrmann.)
Anyway, the Breakthroughs show details work with the
roundworm c-elegans, a nematode also featured in my
Big Pharma suspense novel. I remember that I called
a pharmaceutical scientist to run the plot by him prior
to writing, and he seemed intrigued by the idea of using
HIV to bypass the blood/brain barrier and deposit a
longevity gene along for the ride. Another scientist
told me an anti-aging pill will probably be developed
to extend life (by decades) before mid-21st Century.
So I began imagining how much it would cost, and who
might kill to steal the formula before patented. Little
did i know that, several years later, the premise to
my scifi-ish novel would become real science! |
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