Contract to Kill

Nathan McBride, Book 5

By: Andrew Peterson

Narrated by: Dick Hill

When Toby Haynes witnesses a double murder - and suspects his boss, Tanner Mason, as the perpetrator of the crime - he does the only thing he can think of: He calls in Nathan McBride. CIA special ops veteran McBride and his partner, Harvey Fontana, respond to their friend's plea. As they launch a covert investigation into Mason, the security chief for one of the nation's leading private military contractors, they discover that not everything is as it appears.

Mason and his inner circle are leading a top-secret operation to tackle a wave of crime plaguing the US-Mexican border, and the murder may have been part of their complicated strategy - or part of a more menacing agenda. Soon McBride and Fontana find themselves engaged in a deadly game. With a powerful politician behind it all, stopping Mason could mean joining a secret war - with truly global stakes.

©2015 Andrew Peterson (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

I love this series.

I hope Andrew Peterson has started the next novel in this series. The next book should start with friends and family witnessing Holly and Nate exchanging marriage vows♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Bummed by Hypocritical Logic

If you could sum up Contract to Kill in three words, what would they be?

Fundamental Attribution Error

Would you recommend Contract to Kill to your friends? Why or why not?

It was ok. I was frustrated with the hypocrisy of the main characters in this book. When they learn that two men have been killed by members of a private security team, with almost no knowledge of the context, they determine that the men who did it must be evil and must be stopped - not just stopped, but taken out. Granted, the men did end up doing some pretty bad things, but at that point in the story, the main characters did not know enough to make that call. The bottom line is that they were ready to kill someone for doing something that they have done in every one of their stories. That's the rooster calling the hen cocky, and I was disappointed in the writer for it. For a while I wondered if Nathan and Harve would at some point realize their hypocrisy and experience an epiphany. Nope. The writer just seems to have fallen so in love with his characters that he became blind to this bias. The fundamental attribution error strikes again.

Some things just get better with time

Nathan McBride does not disappoint, he just keeps getting better and better. While Nathan becomes a more rounded character, when we need the old Nathan, he does not let us down.

Great read

Great line of books. I had the audio version..if I have a complaint it would be not differentiating from mason and nathen..sounded the same. During the narrative..I kept getting confused..

Great Story, Bad Narration. Fire Dick Hill.

What made the experience of listening to Contract to Kill the most enjoyable?

The Plot. The Story. Had to fight through the awful narration.

What other book might you compare Contract to Kill to and why?

any badass spy/assassin stuff for grownups.

What didn’t you like about Dick Hill’s performance?

Dick Hill can't do voices beyond the Gumshoe PI. He's terribly miscast. He makes all females and ethic characters sound mentally deficient. It is awful.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. Dick Hill makes my head want to explode.

Any additional comments?

Bronson Pinchot or someone similar would have been so much better.

Good for distraction purposes...

It was pretty similar to the earlier books. Action, more action, lots of guns. Some attempt at humanizing the characters... sorta worked. I will read more in the series. It is a think-free distraction while exercising...

This installment did not have the "moral epilogue" component, which was a very much-appreciated omission.

Narration is good. Nothing particularly graphic.

One of the best from this series

Great book! Great series! Great narration! I have enjoyed every one - makes my work go much faster!

Another 5 star book

Another riveting book in the Nathan McBride series. Well done by Dick Hill who actually puts you in the novel.

Good story

Loved the story! Only feedback on performance is the readers voice for Holly had her sounding very wimpy and not confident. Her character was of a very strong woman. Voice didnt match character.

Entertaining

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, because it was a good listen

What other book might you compare Contract to Kill to and why?

To other books in this series.

What does Dick Hill bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

A great performance

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No

Any additional comments?

Andrew Peterson is one of the writers that I have discovered through Dick Hill, it was in one late Summer afternoon just a couple of years ago while I was browsing the Audible catalog, by narrator and I saw that Mr. Hill recorded something called Force to Kill by an author I never heard about before. I asked Dick about the book and he said that I should definitely try it. Why all this introduction? Well, because that’s exactly what I did and from that day since, I read all Mr. Peterson’s books and loved them all.

The Nathan McBride series has reached now number five and I’m really thrilled that I’m able to write a review for the audiobook version.

In case you are new to Andrew Peterson’s work, as I once were, allow me to fill you in on the characters and I’m sure after you’ll read some of his novels, you will never miss one again and you will grow to care for Nathan and his friends.

All the Nathan McBride books follow an ex CIA Marine Sniper with the same name and his friend Harvey Fontana. I’m not willing to tell you anything more about the first four books because you should just grab them and discover the adventures without any spoilers from me.

In Contract to Kill, a friend of Nathan, by the name of Toby Haynes, witnesses a double murder and fearing for his life he asks for Nathan’s help. Without me giving up too much of the plot I need to tell you that the person whom Toby had seen committing the terrible crime, is actually his boss, Tanner Mason, the Security Chief for one of the largest Private Military Contractors in the United States. Nathan McBride, Harvey Fontana and McBride’s girlfriend who works for the FBI, start an investigation into Tanner Mason and by doing so they light the fuse to a very big hornets nest. From this point on, Andrew Peterson takes us through a chain of events full of heart pounding action and Dick Hill’s performance is stellar, as always.

From my point of view, Contract to Kill is the best book in this series yet, because all the characters are much better defined and they feel alive and real. Nathan is really confused about some aspects of his life, Harvey is always the voice of reason that keeps Nathan from acting rush and McBride’s girlfriend, FBI Agent Holly is torn between her job and the love for Nathan. One other aspect that I enjoyed was the relationship between Nathan and his father that gets more attention from Mr. Peterson then it did in previous novels.

Contract to Kill is very well paced, with deeply emotional moments and on the edge of your seat action sequences. You may even call it a page turner if you want, but I listened to the audio version and I couldn’t push the pause button and stop Dick from his awesome performance. Now, let me tell you about that experience.

I have spent a large amount of my last 10 years listening to audiobooks and as any audiobook fan I have a few favorite narrators. For me, it all started with Michael Prichard, Dick Hill and Scott Brick, but with time I’ve discovered many others that I love today.

I said this and I know I’ll say it, again and again, Dick Hill is one of the best voice-over artists in the Audiobook Industry. He has a talent for keeping you entertained for hours at a time and sometimes I joke that I could listen to him read the Phone book or the Yellow Pages. I identify Mr. Hill with Jack Reacher, a younger Harry Bosch, Dr. Allan Gregory, Inspector Wallander, with Nathan McBride and many others.

In Contract to Kill, Dick Hill gives life to Nathan, to his friends and foes. When it comes to audiobooks, the narrator can destroy a book or he can make it better. He can just read it or he can act it, and Dick Hill acts from the beginning to the end. I love how he chooses different voices, accents and inflections for every character and makes it feel real. Nathan is unstable at times, Harvey is calm and rational, Holly is unsure and tense, Tanner Mason is without remorse and the elder Senator McBride, Nathan’s father, is well spoken and respectable. Yes, this is the way Mr. Peterson envisioned them, but if you are not listening to an audiobook, the only one who can bring them to life and paint them in these colors is the narrator and Mr. Hill does exactly that.

If you choose to go with the audiobook version of Contract to Kill all I can say is that you will be entertained the entire 12 hours of it by one of the best narrators out there.

Mr. Peterson knows how to tell a great story. He is always accurate, never loses focus, creates lifelike characters and thinks of convoluted and very interesting scenarios. I can’t wait for the 6th Nathan McBride novel!