Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: 72 Hours
AUTHOR: Clare London
NARRATOR: Michael Pauley
PUBLISHER:
RELEASE DATE: August 9, 2016
LENGTH: 9 hours, 31 minutes
BLURB:
Tanner Mackay and Niall Sutherland were once far more than just fellow intelligence agents. But then a mission went horribly wrong and everything fell apart, sending Tanner into hiding and splitting the team and their affair wide apart.
Now an unknown traitor is threatening the team, and their ex-boss is determined to reunite them before it’s too late. She finds Tanner in a run-down trailer park, bringing with her a most unwelcome refugee in need of temporary sanctuary: Niall, the man he thought he’d never have to face again. The man he’s sure feels exactly the same in return.
Trapped in a situation that’s both claustrophobic and highly dangerous, Tanner and Niall will have to revisit their past and reconsider their perceptions, their loyalties-and their desires-in order to survive, let alone forge a future together.
REVIEW:
I’m struggling a bit with writing this review. I have the words, though they are not great. Tanner and Niall have a past, a past as partners at work and a past at partners off the job. But after a mission went horribly wrong their relationship fell apart and they got suspended from work. Now some months later it seems someone has it in for their team, picking them off one by one. Getting the team back together might be the only way they survive.
In theory this all sounds really great, it has the marks for an entertaining story, but sadly it didn’t quite live up to its potential. This book was told in two timelines, the past when Tanner and Niall met and the present some months later when their relationship has blown up and their team is in danger. It might have worked for the print version, but it was difficult to follow in audio as there was no real indication of the switches, it left me feeling confused more often than not. Flashbacks can be good done in the right way, but for me and with this book they disrupted the flow of the book.
There’s one thing that made it difficult for me to like this book, and that was my dislike of Tanner. Dislike isn’t even a strong enough word for it, loathed might come a bit closer. He rubbed me the wrong way right from the start and it really coloured the rest of the book. I’m not fond of selfish and shallow people who’s favourite occupation is boasting about how good and smart they are and that everything that happens to go wrong is someone else’s fault. I can’t stand it in real life, and even less in my books. For some reason he spent a lot of time telling us everything he was good at and how the team wouldn’t have been what it was if he hadn’t been there.
On the plus side though Michael Dean, former Pauley, really did capture his boasting personality to a T. Though personally I wish he wasn’t quite as good at it. I got so caught up in my dislike of him (Tanner, not Dean) that everything else was drowned out. In the end not even Dean/Pauley could save this book for me. Others have loved the story and you might too, so don’t let my personal preferences dissuade you from giving it a chance.
RATING: 
Story: 1 heart
Narration: 3.5 hearts
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