Runner

A Sam Dryden Novel, Book 1

By: Patrick Lee

Narrated by: Raul Esparza

Sam Dryden, retired special forces, lives a quiet life in a small town on the coast of Southern California. While out on a run in the middle of the night, a young girl runs into him on the seaside boardwalk. Barefoot and terrified, she's running from a group of heavily armed men with one clear goal - to kill the fleeing child.

After Dryden helps her evade her pursuers, he learns that the 11-year-old, for as long as she can remember, has been kept in a secret prison by forces within the government. But she doesn't know much beyond her own name, Rachel. She only remembers the past two months of her life - and that she has a skill that makes her very dangerous to these men and the hidden men in charge.

Dryden, who lost his wife and young daughter in an accident five years ago, agrees to help her try to unravel her own past and make sense of it, to protect her from the people who are moving heaven and earth to find them both.

Although Dryden is only one man, he's a man with the extraordinary skills and experience - as a Ranger, a Delta, and five years doing off-the-book black ops with an elite team. But, as he slowly begins to discover, the highly trained paramilitary forces on their heels is the only part of the danger they must face. Will Rachel's own unremembered past be the most deadly of them all?

©2014 Patrick Lee (P)2013 Macmillan Audio

loved it!

I loved this story I just wish the ending was different but overall very enjoyable. Raul Esparza does a great job in his narrating the story.

Fantastic!

Loved it. Spellbinding. A unique story line that kept me listening every chance I could get.

Raúl Esparza's performance is excellent

Loved this book. Such a riveting story.. Listened to it all in one afternoon/evening/night. Raúl Esparza's narration/performance was fabulous.

High Tech Surveillance at It's Best

Mind altering drugs and high tech surveillance are at the core of the story. It stretches your imagination and makes for a good yarn, but some of the writer's exaggerations especially of the heroes ability to withstand brutal bodily bashes give me cause to pause. And I'm unintentionally reminded...the story is implausible fiction. Cheers, Ken

Ok - not great

It started so strong and just lost steam. It needed more character development. It’s difficult to keep the audience interested if they don’t care about the characters.

Great suspense and content!

Dynamic intrigue with enough mid-direction to keep a keen interest and engaged atmosphere with the story and characters!

A great listen

Patrick Lee has written another great story.
I greatly enjoyed the Travis Chase series, and this series, so far, is just as good.

pretty good

This book started strong, and although I thought it trailed off a bit at the end, it fulfilled the material in a good way. Looking back, the book seems padded by some of the alternate point-of-view characters, whose importance to the narrative is not commensurate to the number of pages spent developing them . . . and they're not really fleshed out . . . although given the parameters of the book, a character['s motivation is not something the author can pursue. I think I'll see about some more of Mr. Lee's books.

Wow!!! Great Story and Performance

If you could sum up Runner in three words, what would they be?

Satisfying, surprising, and Fast.

What did you like best about this story?

The interplay between the main characters as well as the action.

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

Mr. Esparza's voice work was easy to listen to, and made the main characters particularly appealing and interesting.

Any additional comments?

Lots of great twists and turns ... a very fun read.

Narrator

The narrator speaks too softly. Despite the all of the action, his soft spoken speech made me sleepy and hard to get through an otherwise fun ride.