Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Triple Threat
SERIES: Haven Hart Universe #6
AUTHOR: Davidson King
NARRATOR: Joel Leslie & Philip Alces
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
RELEASE DATE: November 19, 2019
LENGTH: 6 hours, 8 minutes
BLURB:
Lee, Jones, and Ginger deal with dangerous situations and mounting stress daily working for the most powerful assassin organization in the world. All of those things seem like a walk in the park compared to the friction that sparks between them. When all three are assigned to the same job, ignoring the heat from the inferno of desire becomes impossible.
Lee is a master at deciphering codes, skilled in hacking complicated systems, and never misses a target, even from over fifty miles away. His feelings for Jones and Ginger, however, may be the first code he’s unable to crack.
Jones deals in absolutes, but the road to his past is paved with bodies and regrets. Getting Lee to acknowledge the pull they both feel toward Ginger may be the hardest mission he’s ever had to face.
Ginger struggles to cope with the overwhelming guilt that accompanies this new job. Falling for these hired killers will be a risk—one that could wind up with him losing in the end or gaining everything he’s ever wanted.
As the three work together to take down a human trafficking ring—and save a desperate soul—time is of the essence.
REVIEW:
In Triple Threat we meet Jones, Ginger and Lee. We’ve met Ginger in the previous book so I was glad he got a story too. These three assassin are tasked with taking down a human trafficking ring, and need to infiltrate their organization. To do so they pose as a buyer, but when Ginger gets a look at one of the boys on the auction he realizes that the brother he thought was safe and sound with their uncle somehow ended up in the worst possible place. Now it’s a race against time to not only take down the monsters that run the organization, but also to save his little brother.
I enjoyed the overall story of this book – horrible as the subject matter was. Sadly this book missed the mark for me on a few points, and important ones at that. One of them was the main characters. I never connected to any one of them, well some to Ginger but not enough. They didn’t feel complete and lacked depth. Which in turn made their relationship lacking. I just couldn’t see them together – any of them. And then Jones and Lee were supposedly already in love and with an angsty past. I never felt it, not a hint. It might be me, so don’t take my word on this but make up your own mind. For a more detailed review of the plot and characters, please have a look at Cindy and Cheryl‘s reviews earlier this year. For the most part, this review will be about the narration.
Triple Treat was like the previous books narrated by Philip Alces and Joel Leslie. For the past couple of books this has worked well, and for the most part Alces and Leslie has complimented each other and fit the characters they portrayed. However, there is one major difference with this book; this time around we have three main characters, and only two narrators. Now I felt there was a voice short.
The narration it had some issues, or rather there were a lot of them. Philip Alces and Joel Leslie are both very talented voice actors, I’m not in any way trying to deny or diminish that. They know how to bring characters to life, to add some feeling into their narration. But this time around they fell short. It was obvious that there were no real cooperation or communication between them and they both did their thing in their own studios. I know (and appreciate) narrators interpreting their characters differently, and not every clue they need are in the books – but if two (or more) people narrate the same book, they should at least agree on the characters beforehand so that we don’t end up with two versions of each character. It is grounds for some major confusion let me tell you….
And that’s sadly what we ended up with here – especially with Lee’s character. Leslie’s voice (though far from consistent) was on the lower and deeper end of the scale, but whenever Alces narrated a line of Lee’s he used a much higher and lighter pitch – the complete opposite. I don’t mean that they need to sound exactly the same – they are two different people with different ranges, but they at least need to be in the same range, they need to have the same idea and see the same person. And from this narration it was clear they did not.
I did not enjoy Leslie’s voice for Lee. For one, it sounded like he was whispering, and I had to turn the volume higher on my phone to hear what he said. And his voice sounded like an older man and did not fit with Lee’s personality. Or at least my image of him. Lastly, there were many times where Leslie couldn’t maintain the voice throughout the chapter. And even worse was the changes chapter to chapter. I don’t know if there was one voice he could maintain throughout. I spent a lot of the time of this book confused. I couldn’t keep track of who was who in the end, with one voice one minute and another one the next or the mixing of two character voices. I know I say that I’m a huge fan of distinguishing voices, but after this I think I might have to say that I’m a bigger fan of consistency. And a narration with the same voice straight through might have been preferable, or at least less confusing.
I want and need my listening experiences to be effortless. I don’t want or at least need to be 100% focused on the audio just to be able to know what’s going on. I want to be sucked in and immersed in the story and characters and the adventures that awaits. The narration should help me do that, but now I was more focused on the narration instead of the story, which could probably explain why I didn’t really enjoy all that much. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t something that I’m eager to go back to either.
It was not all bad, there were things that they got exactly right, that were so vivid and real. Like I loved how Leslie portrayed Quill, especially when he explained why he needed another cat (because the one he had was crying when alone). It was just so sweet, it made me smile. There were more moments like these, but still the mixing of the characters and voices coloured most of the book.
I have to say that I’m glad that the next book in the series is going to be the last. Because while I have mostly enjoyed these books, I’m questioning the point of them more and more.
RATING: 
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