The Harold Middleton Series - International Thriller Writers

[Samyann]

The Chopin Manuscript - multiple authors. Released in 2007, 7.5 hours of listening. Harry Middleton and the “Volunteers” are introduced in a mystery involving a newly discovered Chopin manuscript. The ‘Volunteers’ is a small group of clandestine good-guys that goes after bad-guys with the aid of alphabet soup named organizations across the world.

The Copper Bracelet - multiple authors. Released in 2009, 8.5 hours in length. A story that starts with a bang: an exploding cell phone and laptop at a beach sting involving Harry Middleton and his cohorts. Subsequent chapters morph into a twisted, confusing, and globe trotting mess that ends with an assassination attempt.

The Starling Project is written by Jeffery Deaver alone and released in 2014. A shorter story just over four hours long, but told in the manner of an old fashioned radio mystery. Lots of sound effects like footsteps, car doors slamming.

The first two books in the series, The Chopin Manuscript and The Copper Bracelet, are collaborative efforts involving multiple writers - each author responsible for one chapter. A single narrator, Alfred Molina, does a credible job - no trouble with male/female voices, good diction, sound effects a little over the top, but decent productions. The books begin with a foundation by Jeffery Deaver and the final chapters are his efforts to bring all the disparaging clues to a close. This wasn’t the plan, I’m sure, but it’s what appears to have resulted.

The books lack the cohesiveness of an overall vision because there are so many cooks in the kitchen stirring the plot with their own vision. The efforts were likely fun (or frustrating?) for the authors, but resulted in books that were difficult reads. Lots of rewinding and muttering of “What the…?”. The best parts of these stories are the chapters written by those you would expect. Jeffery Deaver, Joseph Finder, and Lee Child. In my opinion, the rest tried too hard to ‘make a splash’ and ultimately damaged the overall effort. My cliched opinion: Everybody was not using the same playbook - shoot me.

The last book in the series, The Starling Project, is completely different from a production standpoint. The book is the performances of a myriad of narrators/actors, special sound effects of bombs, gunshots, creaking doors, and heart-thumping music fill - basically an elaborate radio drama. Smooching/moaning during a few sex episodes distracted from plot. These scenes are presented in a ‘fade-to-black’ manner, but are eye-rolling and ridiculous. Although the plot is interesting, Jeffery Deaver uses Harry Middleton conversations to wrap up much of the story - pulling loose ends together in the last few minutes of listening. This book is more about production than story.

The Harold Middleton Series was created in audiobook format only. The series has decent reviews and is certainly an extraordinarily usual effort. Suppose I’m alone in a ‘meh’ opinion - but, there it is.