Tag: Steven Weber

Drowning by TJ Newman, narrated by Steven Weber & Laura Benanti

August 7, 2023 / Kaetrin

A ripping thriller that kept my earbuds (metaphorically) glued to my head.

Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside.

More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.

Their only chance at survival is an elite rescue team on the surface led by professional diver Chris Kent – Shannon’s mother and Will’s soon-to-be ex-wife – who must work together with Will to find a way to save their daughter and rescue the passengers from the sealed airplane, which is now teetering on the edge of an undersea cliff.

There’s not much time.

There’s even less air.

With devastating emotional power and heart-stopping suspense, Drowning is an unforgettable thriller about a family’s desperate fight to save themselves and the people trapped with them – against impossible odds.

Review:

I really enjoyed TJ Newman’s debut novel, Falling, which I also listened to on audio and reviewed here and I’ve been looking forward to her sophomore book, Drowning. Both stories are set in and around commercial airliners and both are ripping thrillers but they’re nonetheless quite different.

Drowning is about the rescue of people trapped within a plane which has crashed into the ocean off the coast of Hawaii. The story mostly takes place over the course of just a few hours. The blurb (above) describes the story very well so I won’t add to it here. My earbuds were glued to my ears and I kept finding excuses to listen, I was that engrossed.

The narration by Steven Weber was superb. He had a great range of character voices and his pacing and tone were fantastic. Mr. Weber narrated most of the book, including POV from the lead character, Will Kent, and also from one of the rescuers and briefly from another male character too – I’d estimate approximately 60-70% of the listen.

Laura Benanti narrated the sections from Will’s not-quite-ex-wife, Chris Kent’s perspective, plus that of a female Navy officer involved in the rescue attempt. It was good but not quite to the standard of Mr. Weber’s. I thought her character voice for the Navy officer was too high-pitched and girlish for the way the officer was described in the text. There was also not quite the same character differentiation in Ms. Benanti’s range as compared to Mr. Weber. Rating her narration separately, I’d give her a B and him and A, so it averages to a B+.

I don’t want to give away what happens at the end but I will say that it does end well. I believe Falling is being made into a movie. Drowning would also be great on the big screen – the way the story unfolds is very cinematic.

The tension is pretty much constant and the story is action-packed. There is also time spent on characterisation; I cared about these people and what happened to them.

The recent loss of the Titan submersible made some of the subject matter in Drowning even more topical and, due to the YouTube rabbit hole I fell down learning about implosions, pressure and deep water diving, I probably understood it better overall. Not only that, I could also tell that much of the technical aspects were accurate, which made it easier for me to go along with other things in the story which either seemed a little unrealistic or where I had no clue whether it was realistic or not.

I don’t listen to many thrillers these days. I think I lucked out when Ms. Newman’s promo tweets about her book made it into my Twitter feed because both of her books have been crackers.

Narration: B+

Book Content: A-

Steam Level: 0

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Falling by TJ Newman, narrated by Steven Weber

April 19, 2023 / Kaetrin

Not a romance but a ripping thriller which is basically an elaborate trolley problem with someone who really does not want to play the game.

I picked up Falling after a promo video by the author about her next book (Drowning – not yet released) was retweeted into my Twitter feed. I clicked, listened, was intrigued and then went and looked up both books. Falling is apparently being made into a movie and I think it will be a cracker.

The set up is fairly simple: Bill Hoffman is a commercial airline pilot. After he settles into the cockpit for a fairly routine flight, he receives a message from his wife’s phone. His wife, Carrie, 10-year-old son and infant daughter are being held hostage. He has a simple choice to make: crash the plane and his family will live. Don’t crash the plane and the terrorist will detonate the suicide-bomber vest Carrie has been forced to wear and Bill’s family dies. Of course, he’s forbidden from telling anyone – or his family dies. Bill is also told he has to slip an unknown, but fatal, powder into the co-pilot’s drink and release a deadly gas (specific chemical unknown but I inferred Sarin or similar) into the plane’s cabin at a specified time during the flight. There is a “Plan B” on the plane – someone assisting the terrorist who will make sure that the gas is released if Bill doesn’t do it.

Bill has about 6 hours of flight time to come up with a plan to save the plane and his family. All while knowing that an unknown someone else on the plane is actively working against him.

There is POV from Bill, his wife Carrie, a flight attendant and an FBI agent, as well as brief cameo POVs from both terrorists.

I didn’t love the way the book began. Bill has a graphic nightmare about a plane crash. It doesn’t really relate to the rest of the book and it was a pretty gory way to start. Then, when each character is introduced, they have a flashback to something important in their life, a memory which is relevant and pivotal. Only, it was at first difficult to tell that’s what was going on and even when I did work it out, it felt more like an interruption to the story rather than helpful information.

However, after that first chapter, once Bill got on the plane, things took a turn for the better (bookwise – not so much for Bill!). The device of the flashback was used throughout the book but after the initial rush, the introduction of characters was more tempered and so the whole thing was less jarring.

I won’t give away spoilers as to what happens. Once Bill understands that his family are in jeopardy the action is pretty much nonstop from there, with twists and turns as the story works itself out. It’s easy to see how it could be a movie.

There’s perhaps a pinch of romance in the book but it’s not a romance novel. I can’t even say it has a romantic thread. Bill and Carrie love each other and are generally happy together. The morning of the fateful flight they are at odds because Bill is working instead of spending agreed time with his family. But it’s clear the couple are devoted to one another.

I liked the various characters and the tension kept me on the edge of my metaphorical seat throughout the listen. In fact, I raced through the audio because I wanted to know what happened!

I also liked that the author humanised the terrorists and showed that, while what they were doing was wrong and bad, they had reason to feel abandoned and despairing. Why Bill and not someone else, was never really satisfactorily answered. I suspect there are other things in the story which don’t quite hold up when viewed carefully. But the pace of the audiobook didn’t really lend itself to that kind of introspection.

The narration, by Steven Weber, was very good. He’s an experienced narrator, good with character voices and accents, and well able to differentiate age with his voice also. He didn’t overplay the performance, letting the text do the work and not falling into melodrama. There was emotion and tension in his delivery which fit the novel and worked well with the story.

I have already pre-ordered Drowning. And, I expect I’ll see the film of Falling when it comes out too, even though I know how it ends already.

Narration: B+

Book Content: B+

Steam Level: 0

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: Simon & Schuster