Sandra Brown is a guarantor of great thrillers. At least that´s the genre where I love her writing the most. Sting is no exception. From the start, you are in a game where you can only guess who´s the good guy and who´s bad. This thriller I enjoyed as an audiobook. And the narrator did a (mostly) great job. But I guess I´ll never like how it sounds when a female figure is read by a male narrator. Just not my case.



Sting
by Sandra Brown
Publisher Hachette Audio on August 16, 2016
Genre Thriller
Length 11 hours and 40 minutes
Narrator Stephen Lang
Format Audiobook
Source Audible
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When Jordie Bennet and Shaw Kinnard lock eyes across a disreputable backwater bar, something definitely sparks. Shaw gives off a dangerous vibe that makes men wary and inspires women to sit up and take notice. None feel that undercurrent more strongly than savvy businesswoman Jordie, who doesn´t belong in a seedy dive on the banks of a bayou. But here she is … and Shaw Kinnard is here to kill her. As Shaw and his partner take aim, Jordie is certain her time has come. But Shaw has other plans and abducts Jordie, hoping to get his hands on the $ 30 million her brother has stolen and, presumably, hidden. However, Shaw is not the only one looking for the fortune. Her brother´s ruthless boss and the FBI are after it as well. Now on the run from the feds and a notorious criminal, Jordie and Shaw must rely on their wits – and each other – to stay alive. Miles away from civilization and surrounded by swampland, the two play each other against their common enemies. Jordie´s only chance of survival is to outwit Shaw, but it soon becomes clear to Shaw that Jordie isn´t entirely trustworthy, either. Was she in on her brother´s scam, or is she an innocent pawn in a deadly vendetta? And just how valuable is her life to Shaw, her remorseless and manipulative captor? Burning for answers – and for each other – this unlikely pair ultimately makes a desperate move that could be their last.
Story
Jordie is in the hands of Shaw Kinnard, a criminal who wants to kill her. His real role in the case of her missing brother and his criminal boss is something she gets furious about, the second she gets to know the truth. And you better don´t piss off Jordie. Shaw learns his lesson the hard way and from that moment on he and Jordie are right in the middle of an evil plan. A plan where nothing is as it seems and one person turns out to be as unpredictable as hell.

Style
Sandra Brown uses again her blunt language that goes very close to being obscene and vulgar and still stays on a high level. She raises tension by changing scenes, showing things that turn out to be most important to the case, and by using characters where you can´t tell who is good and who is bad. During one scene, I was even convinced that Jordie might be not the woman I thought she´d be. There are quite some twists in this thriller and with every minute I was listening I was sure that it couldn´t get any better. 

It could.

Narrator
Stephen Lang did a wonderful job. Okay, I wasn´t very fond of his voice when he spoke Jordie´s part. But despite that, it was beautiful to listen to him being all those various characters. I could really hear by the tone of his voice who was talking in a dialogue or acting at that minute. 

Characters
Don´t let yourself get fooled by the figures Sandra Brown created in Sting. Nothing is as it seems. None of them is what you want them to be. And Kinnard is a man you don´t want to have as your enemy. Edgy, rough, and yet with a style, you wouldn´t expect in a man like him. He is smart as hell, thinks about anything, and everything that could happen and he reads Jordie like an open book. I was very impressed by how he handled every situation, how he argued why he did this or that and how he and Jordie had to get along with each other. 

In the end, Sandra Brown got me, again. I never thought that one figure was the real evil, though the author gave during the plot a lot of hints.


Conclusion
Sting is a great thriller with an unpredictable ending. I never thought that that could happen and was totally surprised when I found out who the real bad guy was. The setting was perfect and wonderfully described by the author. For all Sandra Brown fans, a must-read. For those who shouldn´t know her yet, a great book to begin with.



Happy reading







Sandra Brown
Sandra Brown ©Gregory Heisler Studios



Sandra Brown is the author of 63 New York Times bestsellers. Brown began her writing career in 1981 and since then has published over seventy novels, bringing the number of copies of her books in print worldwide to upwards of eighty million. Her work has been translated into thirty-four languages. A lifelong Texan, Sandra Brown was born in Waco, grew up in Fort Worth and attended Texas Christian University, majoring in English. She is much in demand as a speaker and guest television hostess. Her episode on truTV´s Murder by the Book premiered the series in 2008. She appeared in 2010 on Investigation Discovery´s new series, Hardcover Mysteries. In 2009 Brown detoured from her thrillers to write Rainwater, a much acclaimed powerfully moving story about honor and sacrifice during the Great Depression. Brown holds an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Texas Christian University where she and her husband Michael Brown, have instituted the ELF, a scholarship annually awarded to a student pursuing a fiction-writing career. In 2008, she was named Thriller Master, the top award given by the International Thriller Writer´s Association. Other awards and commendations include the 2007 Texas Medal of Arts Award for Literature and the Romance Writers of America´s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2011, she and four colleagues went on a week-long USO tour to Afghanistan, meeting with service members on numerous bases. Sandra is the past president of the Mystery Writers of America in 2012. She lives in Arlington, Texas, with her husband, Michael Brown.

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