Dead Mountain

By: Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell

Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

#1 New York Times bestselling authors Preston & Child return in the latest installment of the bestselling series featuring renowned archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Corrie Swanson, where a fateful trip to New Mexico uncovers a case that may prove impossible to solve.

In 2008, nine mountaineers failed to return from a winter backpacking trip in the New Mexico mountains. At their last campsite, searchers found a bizarre scene: something had appeared at the door of their tent so terrifying that it impelled them to slash their way out and flee barefoot to certain death in a blizzard. Despite a diligent search, only six bodies were found, two violently crushed and inexplicably missing body parts. The case, given the code name “Dead Mountain” by the FBI, was never solved.

Now, two more bodies from the lost expedition are unexpectedly discovered in a cave, one a grisly suicide. Young FBI Agent Corrie Swanson teams up with archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate what really happened on that fateful trip fifteen years ago—and to find the ninth victim. But their search awakens a long-slumbering evil, which pursues Corrie and Nora with a vengeance, determined to prevent the final missing corpse from ever coming to light.

©2023 Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (P)2023 Grand Central Publishing

buy the hard copy

worst reader I've heard. sound quality resembles an empty concrete hallway. nearly every man sounds the exact same, and it doesn't even sound like a real accent. nobody talks like this. the story is good, even though reminiscent of previous tales of corrie and Nora.

wish I could get a refund. I usually wait to the hard cover to read first and I wish I had again. ruined the immersion and any progress of character development.

Good book - bad choice of the narrator

It was very difficult to stay with the story because of the narrator.

I felt I was listening to my grandmother reading the lines of the big bad wolf.

Any time a male character was depicted, the female narrator tried to a have deep growly voice. Sounded pretty ridiculous.

I would definitely recommend skipping “romance” scene unless you want to feel you are a part of a Saturday Night skit.

I can’t keep going, The narration is dull.

The narration and production quality are really bad. Sounds like it was recorded in a can. I keep stopping a number of times. I want this to work out but it is going to take some time.

Confusing story not helped by poor narration

I generally am a big fan of these authors, but I have to say I was underwhelmed by this book. I found it difficult to keep track of all the characters, and this wasn’t helped by the narration, which I found to be kind of wooden and uninteresting.

Best book ever!

I have enjoyed ALL of the books by these great Authors.
You better have some free time to keep up with this amazing story!🙏

Another winner!

4.5 Stars 🌟

Another winner.

I REALLY have found that I like this writing duo. I'm a huge fan of the Pendergast series and I have enjoyed reading their new spinoff series featuring Nora and Agent Sanson. This book is no different.

As usual, Agent Swanson gets involved in a unusual case and calls on her "maybe" friend, archeologist Nora Kelly. Agent Swanson is just now getting out from under the desk duty that she has been on since the last case that almost got her and Nora killed. She is given a new mentor (Agent Sharp) and they are called out to a cave where some bones have been found. She is to determine if the bones are human, and from this time - which would make it a murder - or if these are bones from the past, and therefore might have some historical value. The book takes off from there. Where the story goes is actually kind of crazy.

The one thing that I really liked was the fact that I had seen the photograph and the explanation of the actual expedition that this was based on sometime in the past year when the story came out in Preston & Childs monthly newsletter. They gave the details of the true teams circumstances and for some reason, that made this book all the better because it was based on events that really did occur.

I liked the way that they were able to build up the drama and kept the storyline moving throughout the entire book. I also will admit that I had no clue what to expect and when the reveal came along and we got the "ta da" moment, I was truly surprised.

I love it when that happens.

I wasn't a fan of the narrator, so while I did enjoy getting able to listen to the story in the audio format, the actual narrator did pull me out of the story on several occasions. I'll need to go and look up the narrator from the last couple of books and see if this was the same narrator.

All in all, another win for me. Now the wait begins for book 5 :)

Masterful storytellers

Another great novel by the masterful storytellers. I read the book and listened to the audiobook.

Good story bad performance

Almost had to give this up as the performer made the main character sound like a little girl. Her voice was pleasant while narrating the main story but struggled with male characters etc. I enjoyed the story though.

Excellent novel!

Preston and Child always do a great job in weaving a suspenseful tale. This one was no different! The only thing that took me out of the story a little was the narrator’s rendition of several of the male characters, which all sounded like Nelson from the Simpsons…

Not a Nora Kelly story

This isn't a bad story - it actually has a lot of great aspects. But it isn't about Nora Kelly. It focuses primarily on FBI agent C. Swanson. It is her path through events that drive the plot, and her fate that is at the centre of events.

The narrator is getting a lot of criticism in the reviews. I don't think she did that badly, but it IS difficult to tell her character voices apart at times. I would listen to the next installment with the samr narrator - she did okay.

The ending of the story lets down its potential. It wraps up too quickly (under 40 mins) and too predictably with no real twists or turns to make it interesting. And at the end of it all, Nora Kelly hasn't really been integral to anything.