The Fall Guy

A Novel

By: James Lasdun

Narrated by: Charles Constant

It is summer 2012. Charlie, a wealthy banker with an uneasy conscience, invites his troubled cousin, Matthew, to visit him and his wife in their idyllic mountaintop house. As the days grow hotter, the friendship between the three begins to reveal its fault lines, and with the arrival of a fourth character, the household finds itself suddenly in the grip of uncontrollable passions.

As listeners of James Lasdun's acclaimed fiction can expect, The Fall Guy is a complex moral tale as well as a gripping suspense story, probing questions of guilt and betrayal with ruthless incisiveness. Who is the real victim here? Who is the perpetrator? And who, ultimately, is the fall guy?

Darkly vivid, with an atmosphere of erotic danger, The Fall Guy is Lasdun's most entertaining novel yet.

©2016 James Lasdun (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Atrocious british accent

The story is good, as is the narrator. That is until he attempts the accent of one of the main characters who is British. I could not finish the book.

Tense psychological thriller, excellently narrated

What made the experience of listening to The Fall Guy the most enjoyable?

The way the story builds in one direction, but then hits you with unexpected twists and turns. Author Lasdun knows how to throw in surprises you don't see coming, but that make perfect sense when you finally see how all the pieces fit together. Narrator Constant is excellent, especially his mastery of accents.

What other book might you compare The Fall Guy to and why?

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee. This play and The Fall Guy novel both have intense psychological dynamics among a limited number of characters.

What does Charles Constant bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Constant is a master at pacing a story, and at providing accents that really make the characters come alive. This is true voice acting, not just bland narration.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I listened to it in two sittings. The suspenseful developments kept me listening intently til the end, but I like breaking my Audible books into several listening periods.

Any additional comments?

It's rare to find a literate book with well-developed characters. And to find a narrator who can present the characters exactly as they would be in real life.

Slow, run-of-the-mill crime thriller

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

A pretty ordinary crime thriller that takes a long, long time to get underway. I can't recall why I started reading this book--whether the recommendation was algorithmic or personal, but it wasn't my bag.

What was most disappointing about James Lasdun’s story?

The main character is a chef, so there were lengthy descriptions of meals and cooking techniques, which definitely were not for me.

What aspect of Charles Constant’s performance would you have changed?

I was unconvinced by some of the accents

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Nope

Not well written

I'm not understanding why Audible promoted this book. It is totally flat, with banal prose and one- dimensional characters. Kept listening because I was curious to see whether it would ever get interesting.

Disappointment, then tedium

Would you try another book from James Lasdun and/or Charles Constant?

This book was surprisingly difficult to listen to. The stilted narration did nothing to help the plot---a thin quilt of a story pieced of popular culture squares of foodie interests, snob location appeal and socially responsible investment banking. All of it unlikely, and all the characters equally unlikable.