The Sorrow Hand

A Nick Drake Novel, Book 1

By: Dwight Holing

Narrated by: Steve Marvel

For Vietnam veteran turned wildlife ranger Nick Drake, the war at home proves just as deadly.

Harney County, Oregon, 1968: Nick Drake has a chest full of medals and enough demons to fill a duffel bag. He's been trained to kill but was never retrained to rejoin society. Drake flees to the lonesome high desert in search of redemption and takes a job patrolling wildlife refuges where the only conflicts are keeping out stray cows and ticketing poachers. But then he stumbles across a girl's body ritually placed in a gully.

Her murder is only the beginning, and Drake must face humanity's heart of darkness once again if he's to stop a killer from turning even more gullies into graves.

©2018 Dwight Holing (P)2019 Tantor

road trip

good listen while we were on the road. easy to follow along and not fall asleep

NICK DRAKE

This Book is about Nick Drake. He is laying low in Harney County Oregon. He's a Wildlife and Fish Ranger. The sheriff gets him to help him solve a murder. There is clues in this book but you don't know till the end who's the bad guy. I really liked this book a lot. I'll continue with this series. Steve Marvel did a good job narrating this book. He's got a good voice. Not so many different voices but I loved his voice and narrating. If my review is any help will you please click on the helpful link below. Thank you

Great story poorly narrated

This first novel has all the elements I look for in a book. 1st, a solid lead character. Nick Drake is struggling to put the war behind him. His PTSD is fairly realistically portrayed. Flashbacks weave through the story and are momentarily confusing at times, but help the reader understand what the character is going through. He’s flawed and relatable. 2nd, a setting you feel immersed in. The high desert setting is well described with lots of small details that make it seem like a real place. 3rd, a good supporting cast. Jemma, Pudge and November are all well rounded and interesting. The mystery is not all that compelling but the story as a whole is still well worth a listen. The only negative for me was the Narrator. At times, several characters sounded so similar that it was hard to figure out who was talking. His reading of the story was fairly flat and he often sounded like a newscaster from the 1960s, so as the action built, his voice and manner stayed the same, taking away from the building suspense.

Wow, what a find!

This soulful, deep, honourable protagonist is worth knowing and spending time with. His respect and openness to other people’s ways of seeing, seeking, and knowing are key to his ability to act quickly to save lives.
This is the most compelling book I’ve read in ages, but I admit it is partly due to the fact that it mirrored so much of my own story as a teenage girl in 1968 frequently hitchhiking through Oregon on my way to and from San Francisco & Seattle. I too had close calls with predators, stayed at an ashram, knew the same movies, books and song lyrics as Nick Drake, and had male friends wounded spiritually by their experience in Vietnam.
The story would be exciting to those readers who do not share the era, though, as it is so gripping and well written. I intend to read more of this author.

Disappointed

There are a lot of people liking this, but, wow. I am pretty filled up with the 'woe is me'. C.J. Box, he isn't. Craig Johnson, he isn't. William Kent Krueger, he isn't.