Unlucky Day

By: J. R. McLeay

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

NO ONE IS SAFE...

A mysterious sniper is killing random New York City citizens at the same time every day.

Detective Joe Bannon and his partner Hannah Trimble follow the breadcrumb trail of clues down repeated blind alleys. With citizens fearing to venture outside, the streets of Manhattan have become nearly deserted.

When the sniper begins escalating the profile of his targets, higher level government agencies are pulled in. But the shooter always seems to be one step ahead of the law and slips away whenever the authorities get close.

As copycat killings begin spreading to other cities across the U.S., the President hatches a dangerous plan to trap the killer. Can Joe and Hannah catch the assassin before he executes the most closely guarded man in history?

©2016 J. R. McLeay (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Excellent Police Procedural...

I really enjoyed this book a lot. This author is new to me and only has one other book on Audible that I wouldn't be interested in, however I will be keeping an eye out for him in the future. This book is an excellent police procedural with another really twisted antagonist.
The two detectives investigating are under an enormous amount of pressure when a sniper begins shooting people in NYC, one person per day. He is excellent with disguises, easily covering a slight facial deformity. He's an excellent shot and he has all of the city afraid to leave their homes as all of his victims are so randomly chosen, or so it appears from the outside looking in. It becomes very personal to Joe (the male detective, his part is a woman, Hannah) when the shooter kills his wife. There are a few times they think they have him but don't. Then they do figure out who but there is no way to prove it and with his antagonistic attitude the detective has a hard time maintaining control. The ending has a good twist that I didn't see coming.
Peter Berkrot does an excellent job narrating.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book.
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Serial murder by sniper in NYC

A sniper starts killing random people at long distance at the same time, just after noon, each day. The Manhattan murders starts with a pregnant woman and then a cop. When Detective Joe Bannon becomes the public head of the investigation, the sniper kills his wife. Later to demonstrate the city is safe the mayor has an outdoor press conference and he is killed by the sniper. The city stays indoors during daylight hours due to fear. As the suspense builds the US president decides to make a speech in public in Manhattan.

Unlucky Day builds in intensity. Then near the end there is an incredible twist. This is an excellent novel with outstanding narration.

A Gripping & Realistic Thriller

I’m not sure when the original book was published but I’m betting it was before the Vegas shooter took the lives of numerous people attending a concert. But, knowing the story around that and then reading this Unlucky Day made this story even more believable. The story also reminded me a lot of the snipers that were terrorizing the DC area years back. Seemingly random victims were being killed at random with no discernible pattern.

The inclusion of how the police and FBI would profile the sniper took this book to another level. McLeay’s inclusions of this tells me that he understands the process but also understands that you can tell things about someone from the seemingly meaningless crimes that don’t feel like they fit together.

The profile that was made was a really interesting one that McLeay took their time explaining out if it was true or not. The flashback scenes really helped bring the past into the present and pull all the pieces together.

Berkrot really brings this story to life. I’ve read another book by McLeay and they are able to tell a story like no other, but adding in Berkrot really brings this home. He was able to use the range of his voice to tell a chilling and terrifying crime thriller.

Overall, a good enjoyable crime thriller from an author that I’ll be watching out for.

I was voluntarily provided with a copy of this book. It has not affected my review in any way.

OK book with great narration..

Ok, this just went on and on and on. One murder after another and Joe couldn’t catch a break. The killer managed to sneak away at every turn. It became monotonous and boring. This author could have ended this story at 70% and it would have been so much better. This did make the police look incompetent.

It was interesting, as long as you weren’t reading about Joe and Hannah screwing up every time they tried to close in on the killer. By the time it came to the 7th or 8th killing I was thinking I had had enough so I almost skimmed to the end, which I do when an author drags out a story just to add pages, whether it makes it more interesting or not. You can only surround buildings so many times and the guy gets away before it becomes too boring for words. Another story that did not have to be 350 pages.

However, I did like that the killer’s thoughts and feelings were in the first person narrative. It really showed how crazy he was and why.

It turned out to be good, during the last 40 pages. That’s how many pages it took to get the killer, chasing him on a bicycle through the streets and alleyways of Manhattan.

The F-bomb was used 10 times.

As to the narration: One reviewer said the narration was “overdone” but I beg to differ. Peter Berkrot’s narration was spot-on. The women need a little work but his males all had their own voices, including the killer who gave you the creeps every time he spoke. And his emotions when he read were wonderful. The narrator was much better than the book, I’m sad to say.

Thoughts

Interesting thriller with action packed ending. SPOILER ALERT-the pres and SS were a real stretch. What happened to the dog?

Great story, poor performance

This is a well-written story but the narrator’s inability to provide variety when voicing characters makes it a difficult listen. If you have the patience to wade through conversations where all parties sound the same, it’s worth a download.

Excellent Book!

I really enjoyed listening to Unlucky Day. I would recommend to family and friends to read this book .

Unlucky day

The first part was slow for me, but the action filled ending was grand! This book was interesting.

Narration drove me nuts.

I am having to write reviews on my iPhone 5, which also means I cannot preview what I have written! So please forgive my grammar.

Unlucky Day begins with a really good premise, but the narration was overdone, which in turn made the novel’s dialogues far too juvenile. I highly recommend listening to the sample before making a purchase.

Quite a few reviewers I like found no issue with this. So I certainly feel like a loner here.