Phantom Instinct

By: Meg Gardiner

Narrated by: Angela Brazil

In Edgar Award-winning author Meg Gardiner's new stand-alone thriller, an injured cop and an ex-thief hunt down a killer nobody else believes exists.

When shots ring out in a crowded Los Angeles club, bartender Harper Flynn watches helplessly as her boyfriend, Drew, is gunned down in the crossfire. Then somebody throws a Molotov cocktail, and the club is quickly engulfed in flames. LA Sheriff Deputy Aiden Garrison sees a gunman in a hoodie and gas mask taking aim at Harper, but before he can help her a wall collapses, bringing the building down and badly injuring him.

A year later, Harper is trying to rebuild her life. She has quit her job and gone back to college. Meanwhile, the investigation into the shoot-out has been closed. The two gunmen were killed when the building collapsed.

Certain that a third gunman escaped and is targeting the survivors, Harper enlists the help of Aiden Garrison, the only person willing to listen. But the traumatic brain injury he suffered has cut his career short and left him with Fregoli syndrome, a rare type of face blindness that causes the delusion that random people are actually a single person changing disguises.

As Harper and Aiden delve into the case, Harper realizes that her presence during the attack was no coincidence - and that her only ally is unstable, mistrustful of her, and seeing the same enemy everywhere he looks.

©2014 Meg Gardiner (P)2014 Blackstone Audiobooks

One of my faves!

I don’t usually leave comments. Too busy listening. But this was great. Lots of suspense, great characters and great narration.

Great book to keep you on your toes

really liked the book and the narrator made it all worth while she projected the emotions and transported me as if i was right there in the mist of it all

Not her best but it's an earlier one

A bit amateurish as far as dialogue and plot. Some good action seems though. The narrator is a bit choppy but not that bad. Still a good attempt at a complex concept. it's great reading this compared to Gardiner's recent works, she's developed so much into an excellent author.

Terible narrator

What did you like best about Phantom Instinct? What did you like least?

The narrator was terrible, ruined what could be a good book

What didn’t you like about Angela Brazil’s performance?

She was very inconsistent in her reading, she went back and forth reading fast and slow. It was very distracting and ruined the flow of the book.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

maybe

Entertaining

This book was entertaining but could have been much shorter. I understand the author did a good job in story telling but often there was too much description. Instead of making the story more suspenseful I just wanted they to get on with it already.

Great book

Where does Phantom Instinct rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I really like Meg Gardiner but this book was one of my favorites by her. In my top 25% of books (I listen to a LOT of books).

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Can't really say without it being a spoiler but it was when one of the characters I wasn't expecting to be a stand-up person suddenly made an appearance that changed my whole opinion of him/her.

Any additional comments?

There were several machinations in the book that were over-the-top and law enforcement completely disregarding evidence and constantly doubting Harper no matter what was presented to them could have ruined this book for me. I had a few moments of "that's just too much" or "no one would really do that" or "really?!?" but the story was so good, so intriguing and edge of my seat WTH is going to happen next?, and I really liked Harper's character, grit and determination so much that I decided early on in the book to just ignore those little whispers, go with the flow and remember that it is FICTION and sometimes even real life can be "stranger than fiction". After I thought those things, the book just took over and I escaped into Harper's own form of hell and couldn't stop listening and cheering that she would, in the end, win. Afterall, I always like to see the underdog come out on top and had to find out if that would be the case this time.