Double Take (FBI Thriller) (FBI Thriller) by Catherine Coulter Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Double Take (FBI Thriller) (FBI Thriller)
Book Review: Double Take: FBI Thriller
Summary: 1 Stars
Really dumb. FBI agents just going out on their own and solving crimes???????? Would not recommend. Boring and dumb.Book Review: An engineering disaster (Applies ONLY to audio book)
Summary: 3 Stars
I've always enjoyed Catherine Coulter's books and this one is no exception. Sandra Burr and Phil Gigante are fine readers on their own. In this reading, Mr. Gigante reads the book as well as all the men's parts, Ms. Burr handles all the female characters. The credits say they are the producers as well. Unfortunately they should stick to their day jobs, this is an engineering nightmare and almost impossible to enjoy. His voice is recorded sounding very dark and muffled, her voice is the opposite, louder, brighter and very sibilant. There is NO way one could ever imagine these two characters being in the same room together. It sounds as though they recorded each part separately in different states and edited them together afterwards. Totally awkward sounding. Please let a professional engineer record you next time. Not at all up to standard.Book Review: I too, had trouble with this one
Summary: 3 Stars
I actually gave up on it after 145 pages - just couldn't get into it. The writing was choppy, the characters just weren't interesting enough to hold my interest -- I felt almost like I was reading an intermediate reader's book, with very short chapters and shorter sentences! The main character was from a much earlier book and I just don't remember enough about him. It's too bad, I was looking forward to this one as I love the rest of the series. Book Review: Hate to be a downer, but I think it's over for Catherine & Me
Summary: 3 Stars
I started reading the FBI books back when The Cove first came out. I have read every one of them, but unlike most of my audio books, I didn't have this one set to ship the day it came out. I love the characters, but I don't like the narration. Sandra Burr and Phil Gigante co-narrate the book and they are both fine voices, but it doesn't use his voice for some of the book and hers for other parts, instead he reads the narration and voices up until we get to a "she said" and then suddenly we switch voices. I sounds good in theory but it's really off-putting in fact. I think this may have to be my last purchased book in the series. It's not just the narration. The stories have been going down hill for a while. I really loved those first ones. I just went back and reviewed them to try and figure out what happened and figured out that I loved the first three. And liked the next three. And I've read another five because I keep hoping that the characters will come back to their roots. Yes, I guess it's over for me. This happened to me with her earlier romance titles. They began to seem formulaic. Though I read them all, when I started letting my daughter read adult romance, I didn't give her those. In each series, if not in each book, there was a man with a tortured soul which caused him to abuse the woman who loved him anyway. Not healthy. Coulter has managed not to do quite so much with unhealthy relationships, but still, the characters just don't get anywhere. Instead of being light-hearted the banter has become more heavy-handed. It's like saying good-bye to a family who were once your best friends, but now you're sort of glad that they're moving. I'm going to miss Sherlock and Savich. Book Review: Not a bad installment
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm never quite sure about Catherine Coulter. I have at one point or another read all her books, starting way back when she just wrote historical romance. I enjoy her plots - I'm a person who loves series because I like to get to know characters, and she writes that part very well. I just can't ever get over how oddly her characters talk. It just always jars me to hear her characters' conversations where there aren't any contractions or the language seems so formal and stilted.
That aside - and if you read her, I bet you know what I mean - this was a good installment. Without giving spoilers, a question gets answered from the last story. The ongoing characters are well developed and grow some, as people do.
The plot is, well, over the top. I am both a mystery and a romance reader. I do NOT pick up the likes of Catherine Coulter, Linda Howard, Julie Garwood and their ilk for the realism of their police procedures. I go to Kathy Reichs, Linda Fairstein, Deborah Crombie and so on for that. This one, in particular, seems to throw all investigative technique out the window and relies nearly solely on the FBI folks' intuition and the ubiquitous Max. There is also (no surprise, I hope, since the book's about a psychic's widow) a strong supernatural element to this book, which may turn off readers like my grandmother, who loves authors like Coulter or Nora Roberts, but won't read any of their books that feature ghosts or witches or the like.
Again, this is a series book. Most of us dedicated series readers will buy or read series books until the author makes some huge character mistake or the writing just goes completely into the toilet. So, if you read the FBI series, you'll probably want to read this, no matter what I say. And, what I have to say about this book is not at all bad - I felt that it was a good installment for this particular series. And, if you've not read any of this series before, this is not the place to start. You'll be confused, you won't have the emotional attachment to the characters, and you might not be as willing to forgive some of the oddities of the writing.