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Title: The Payback

Author: Simon Kernick

Narrator: Daniel Weyman

Format: Abridged

Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-17-11

Publisher: Random House Audiobooks

Ratings: 2 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Suspense

Publisher's Summary:

Dennis Milne is a man with a past, and a past that involves murder. A former cop, hes earned his living killing the bad guys drug-dealers, corrupt business men - people who, in his opinion, deserve to die. For the past two days, hes been in Manila, waiting for his next target: a young woman whos made herself some poor life-choices, and some even worse enemies.

DI Tina Boyd is a woman on a mission. Tough, spiky and determined, shes looking for the man she holds responsible for the death of her lover. She knows hes ruthless. She knows hes dangerous. But hes in Manila, and shes determined to find and kill him before he kills her.

Two cops with pasts that haunt them - and a present that could see them both dead. They are about to meet. And when they do, its payback time

Members Reviews:

nice style, too many cliches

Kernick gives the reader two lead characters with depth and likability. That's his strength.

The storytelling structure is bizarre and sometimes awkward, shifting back and forth from Milne's first-person narrative to third-person description of Boyd's travails. The plot rambles and is needlessly complex and challenging to follow. I probably would have benefitted from reading about Denis Milne, as well as the prequel to this tale, in the author's previous books.

There are far too many last-second coincidences and escapes here to maintain credibility. The many James Bond books already used these devices, although with raised eyebrow and tongue in cheek. Ian Fleming knew that his countless nick-of-time twists were absurd and snickered along with the reader. Kernick expects the reader to actually buy them, suspending the fact that we've seen each of them scores of times before.

All of these serious flaws notwithstanding, "The Payback" is still an enjoyable piece of entertainment if you take it with a block of salt.

Payback

Excellent, classic Cold War thriller in which a Vietnam vet and retired Delta soldier pursues his wife's killer, a man with diplomatic immunity who is really a rogue KGB agent and part of a bigger conspiracy involving a stolen tactical nuke. As the story unfolds, going from New York to Europe to Central America, Pollock provides authentic details on everything from espionage tradecraft, weapons, satellites, intelligence agencies, military units, and jungle warfare. Pollock is a good writer, and this book still holds up well today. It's disappointing he never wrote more books.

But then a mass market may well be more satisfied. Other authors do it so much better

Average fare, and no stretching of the mind. But then a mass market may well be more satisfied. Other authors do it so much better. It's cliched, predictable, the story so unlikely as to be ridiculous, yet one stays with it, anxious to see the end unfold. And THAT is probably what counts ultimately. It's simply an easy read, and we all need that at times. Go to more well known/admired authors in the same genre, though, and you will see the difference - merely in the writing. The Dennis Milne character is underwritten, potentially more complex and one that really SHOULD be explored in greater depth, the moral argument behind his decision making given greater elevation.