A Friend in the Dark cover art

A Friend in the Dark

An Auden & O'Callaghan Mystery, Book 1

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A Friend in the Dark

By: C.S. Poe, Gregory Ashe
Narrated by: Garrett Kiesel
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About this listen

Rufus O’Callaghan has eked out a living on the streets of New York City by helping the police put away criminals as a confidential informant. But when Rufus shows up for an arranged meeting and finds his handler dead, his already-uncertain life is thrown into a tailspin. Now someone is trying to kill Rufus too, and he’s determined to find out why.

After leaving the Army under less than desirable circumstances, Sam Auden has drifted from town to town, hitching rides and catching Greyhounds, until he learns that a former Army buddy, now a police detective in New York City, has died by suicide. Sam knows that’s not right, and he immediately sets out to get answers.

As Rufus and Sam work together to learn the truth of their friend’s death, they find themselves entangled in a web of lies, cover-ups, and accelerating danger. And when they witness a suspect killed in cold blood, they realize they’re running out of time.

©2020 C.S. Poe, Gregory Ashe (P)2020 C.S. Poe, Gregory Ashe Romance Romantic Suspense Suspense New York

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All stars
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It's such a shame that my enjoyment of this book was ruined by the bad audio editing for this audiobook. There are spaces of several seconds between sentences and character dialogue throughout this story. it made listening to this book stop start frustrating. I tried speeding the audio but it didn't help. I did report the issue to Audible but they did nothing about it.

Terrible audio editing for decent story

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Rufus has a problem. He’s a CI (confidential informant) for the NYC Police Department and his contact has just been killed and now he’s squarely a target.

Sam’s old buddy was Rufus’ handler, and upon hearing of his former army friend’s death, he heads to NYC to try to figure out what’s going on.

Sam and Rufus are an unlikely pair as they try to figure out what happened. They are attracted to each other – even sleep together – but both have mental health issues that they need to deal with. Oh yeah and crooked cops, human traffickers, and NYC in the summer. Made for an interesting ride.

I wasn’t thrilled with the ending, but I knew there would be more books to come and so held out hope and now that book 2 is out in audio, I’m heading there now.

Garrett Kiesel in a new narrator for me and he did a decent job. Can’t wait to see where Sam and Rufus go next.

The odd couple

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Wow the audio editing was so bad on this book. It was really difficult to keep up with the story at times but in the end was worth it as both CS Poe and Gregory Ash are amazing authors. On to book 2 now in the hope the audio editing is better.

Bad Audio - Good Story

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Listener received this title free

I was give this audiobook as an advanced listener.
When I reviewed the ebook I voiced the fear that the fact that two of my favourite writers coming together to write a book I was worried that I would be disappointed. That was not the case.

So what does listening to the audiobook add. Garrett Kiesel was a good choice as the narrator. I had wondered if we might get two narrators to give the different perspectives of Rufus and Sam as in the book but it wasn't necessary as Kiesel made their characters and voices distinct and quite quickly I could hear their thoughts and was their with them through their travails.

As previously stated admittedly it was a slow start but the foundation was necessary as the story took off. Rufus and Sam's characters were built so that you wanted to invest in them and both Poe and Ashe know how to write a good story that forces you go along even when you should taking break and getting on with more mundane things.

We need book two as there is much more to understand as to how Rufus and Sam came to be as they are now.
We also need to keep Garrett Kiesel because as the narrator as he is a good find.

A great start to new series

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Listener received this title free

A Friend in the Dark is book one (of four) in a new series of m/m romantic suspense novels co-authored by Gregory Ashe and C.S. Poe, and it’s a strong start, boasting a well-paced and interesting mystery and two quirky, engaging central characters I’m eager to spend more time with. Narrator Garret Kiesel is new-to-me and, it seems, quite new to audiobook narration in general; so far he has narrated a few non-fiction books with this as his sole venture into fiction. I’m always apprehensive when listening to a new narrator, especially one who is narrating a book I’ve enjoyed; thankfully however, Mr. Kiesel acquits himself reasonably well , but there’s a serious production issue that irritated me, especially during the latter half of the audiobook.

The mystery - which revolves around the murder of a detective and the two of his friends who want to find out what happened - is intriguing and nicely put together, and the two central characters, are quirky and engaging. Their relationship looks set to be one of Gregory Ashe's typical slow-burns, and while the mystery is solved by the end of this book, it hangs on a cliffhanger in terms of Rufus and Sam's relationship, but I have faith the two authors will get them together in the end!

The narration isn't bad, although there are a lot of mispronunciations that should have been picked up in post production and corrected, but by far the biggest issue are all the unnecessary pauses. There are a lot – and I mean a LOT – of them; between dialogue and tags (he said etc.), between alternating dialogue in conversations – which makes the whole conversation seem stilted – between sentences, between paragraph breaks… and it was difficult to ignore or “unhear” it. A second or two of silence is a long time in an audiobook, and some of these pauses were long enough to have caused me to wonder if my phone battery had died. Garrett Kiesel's actual performance isn't bad, and I'd definitely listen to him again, but I hope the pauses are eradicated in book two.

Good story - but why all the long pauses?

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The story premise is good and the characters are likeable. The narration was good too.

Interesting Story

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