AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Red Desert by Paddy Magrane

Red Desert by Paddy Magrane
 

Release Date: May 7, 2020
Format: Audiobook
Listening Length: 8 hours and 50 minutes
Narrator: Joe Jameson
Publisher: Audible Studios
 

 

Blurb

When a violent attack on his girlfriend tears Tom’s life apart, escape makes perfect sense. He takes a job with an oil company, providing therapy to staff cooped up in a camp in Southern Iraq. Nice pay packet, if you don’t mind being stuck in the desert surrounded by unexploded mines and cluster bombs.

On his arrival, an explosion outside the camp leaves four men dead. Something about it doesn’t make sense, and Tom starts to ask questions. His curiosity begins to get him into trouble – especially with the former soldiers who work there as security contractors. When the camp is attacked and Tom is shipped home, he continues his investigations. Working with a journalist pursuing a story about a cover-up, Tom looks into a notorious army barracks. But then the journalist falls beneath a tube train. Falls, or is pushed? With an unseen enemy closing in, will Tom’s search for the truth end in his death, too?

Set between London, Berlin and Iraq, this white-knuckle suspense thriller is perfect for fans of The Hurt Locker, American Sniper and Homeland.

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Audible

I’ve never read this author or listened to any of his books so I was really branching out on something new here. I’m obsessed with thrillers and find myself sucked into their deceptive storylines. Red Desert was a quick listen! I think that’s mainly due to the suspenseful feeling throughout the storyline. Add in the narration by Joe Jameson and it was incredibly pleasing to the ear as well. Let me first tell you that Joe Jameson is a delight to listen to him! At first I didn’t think I had heard him previously but he’s narrated some of my absolute favorite books from Lisa Jewell and Michael Robotham. He has this way of bringing a dreadful feeling to the pit of my stomach… just by his voice! It’s remarkable! I loved his tone and the inflictions… he brought Tom’s life alive! I find that talent to me one of the most fascinating things… to just give them a pulse with a voice.

Now, Joe didn’t do this by himself. While he might be a top notch voice actor, he needs the character(s) to channel. That is just what he did with Tom. The author, Paddy Magrane, developed the character where the listener is invested in his life. I routed for him the entire time and was so captivated for such a story. Res Desert isn’t exactly my normal “type” of thriller. Generally I dive more into the domestic thrillers. However, I’m really glad I took a chance with this one. It feels like an espionage-type of story with a little bit of Tom’s personal story to make me really pulled in! This is a high-action, super intense listen that will end way quicker than you’d think with the nearly 9 hours of story but that’s what a good book does! 

I was given an advanced copy of this audiobook for review purposes. That fact does not sway my opinion and everything included here is just that, my opinion.

About the Narrator
 

Joe Jameson  

Actor & Voice-Over Artist

Joe trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Since graduating he has worked extensively in theatre, television, film & in voiceovers. He has narrated over 150 audiobooks for Audible and is an extremely experienced voice actor. During his stage and screen career he performed at Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Exchange in Manchester, and the Soho Theatre. He is represented by Jamie Grant @ Loud and Clear Voices 

Find more information on his website: www.joejameson.co.uk

About the Author

Paddy was born in Bahrain, grew up in Northern Ireland, and was educated in Yorkshire.
After school, he lived for a year in Florence, working as a gardener in the hills above the city. This was followed by a job painting murals in the highlands of Scotland.

One evening while there, he was invited out for dinner. He found himself in a castle and, to his slight horror, sitting opposite Barbara Cartland. ​Plastered in makeup and dressed in vivid pink, the world’s most prolific writer (700 books plus) lectured Paddy about etiquette and encouraged him to take up designing the covers of romantic novels. He soon discovered it wasn’t for him, but Babs did at least do him a favor. Paddy realized that illustration, and murals for that matter, were not his thing, so he applied to study painting at art school. He gained a place at City & Guilds in Kennington, London, where he spent three happy, productive years while living on a freezing cold houseboat by Battersea Bridge.

After graduating with a first, he moved to New York. He worked as a waiter and an assistant to an abstract expressionist artist, spending his spare time soaking up the city’s galleries and concentrating on his own paintings.

It was in New York, in a diner in the East Village, that he had lunch with a witty, melancholic Quentin Crisp, and where, one evening at a party in Carroll Gardens, he was introduced to ‘George’, a hitman who worked for the Gambino crime family. Paddy remembers George as a childlike giant, and not a man to upset.

He was an artist for ten years, then launched his own hand-made silk tie company, selling to Jeremy Paxman, who often wore Paddy’s designs on University Challenge.

​He then turned to copy-writing and journalism. In 2005, he retrained as a psychotherapist at the University of East London. Today he divides his time between journalism, counselling and writing crime thrillers.

Paddy has traveled all over the Middle East and East Africa, but he’s now happily settled in Devon, where he lives with his wife and two daughters.

Stay up to date on Paddy’s work by visiting his website and following him on these social media accounts.

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