The Exile [Unabridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Allan Folsom (Author), Paul Michael (Narrator)

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Books on Tape; Unabridged edition (2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1415903352
• ISBN-13: 978-1415903353
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (74 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,934,088 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Writer Who Is Not Controversial Enough, September 12, 2004

By 

Timothy Haugh (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Exile (Hardcover)

There was a lot of buzz when Mr. Folsom's first book, The Day After Tomorrow, was published some years ago. Though Mr. Folsom's work has never had the success of Dan Brown's, he works a lot of the same territory--thrillers with a "conspiracy theory" subtext. The Exile is another good example of the genre.

This novel, however, will unlikely have the success of The DaVinci Code. In some ways Mr. Folsom is a better writer. He certainly writes a better chase sequence--the opening 60 pages of this novel are as exciting as any I've read with an excellent red herring, slight-of-hand result. But successful novels like this are often helped by controversy and Mr. Folsom isn't likely to generate much here.

Though I find The Exile to be in many ways as controversial as The DaVinci Code, the choice of target makes all the difference. Mr. Brown has religion and the Catholic Church, whose adherents were quick to jump at the publication of the novel. It is the LAPD that receives the biggest slap from Mr. Folsom--incompetence and killing squads anyone?--but it is unlikely that anyone will feel it important to stand up for the police. In some ways, I think that's too bad; and telling about the state of the American psyche.

And, of course, there is the fact that Mr. Folsom's conspiracy centers around a surviving Romanov dynasty trying to come back to power in Russia. Something that's not like to generate that much interest to an American reader despite the fact that the Romanov's seem "hot" right now.

Still, all in all, The Exile is a good read. Mr. Folsom is an excellent writer who does generate a lot of excitement and a pair of excellent characters in John Barron & Raymond Thorne. Yes, the later parts of the book do get a bit predictable and he dips into the chase scene well a little too often and, in my opinion, he would have a better novel if he would have ended the novel halfway down page 701 instead of wrapping it up rather tritely. These are small complaints, however. Readers who enjoy thrillers will enjoy this one.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 702 Page "PAGE-TURNER", September 1, 2004

By 

D. LEE "dml48221" (Palo Alto, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Exile (Hardcover)

This novel is a page turner until the very last word on page 702.

John Barron, the main character is a police officer with an elite branch of the LAPD called the '5-2'. Once a member, a member for life or more appropriately, till death do us part. The 5-2 is a vigilante unit and John Barron isn't quite the vigilante type.

Enter Raymond Thorpe who kills all across the country and then ends up on a train and in LA. He is captured, then escapes, kills a bunch of people and all the while, the wonder is "who is Raymond Thorpe and what does he want". The 5-2 squad finally captures Thorpe and Barron helps him escape his ultimate "capture" by the 5-2. Unfortunately, Thorpe is captured again and is ultimately killed..or was he.

Barron must leave the country, obtain a new identity (enter John Barron aka Nicholas Marten) and start anew in Europe. After all, the LAPD doesn't forgive and sure isn't about to forget. Life in Europe progresses nicely for a moment but John just can't let go of the Raymond thing. Murders start to happen in Europe which are eeirly familiar. John's best friend is murdered and John begins to think.."is Raymond really dead?"

The balance of the story involves politics, a constitutional monarchy, a madman with a royal bloodline, a scorned woman seeking revenge and the future of a country.

This is truly a gripping, page turning, incredibly well written novel which WILL NOT disappoint.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed but entertaining, January 12, 2006

By 

mrliteral - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Exile (Hardcover)

On a train heading from Barstow to Los Angeles, a vicious killer named Raymond Thorne notices several plainclothes cops in his passenger car. Have they somehow caught up with him? No, because coincidentally, there is another killer on the same train, and when the police converge on him, Raymond winds up being a hostage. Although not the original target of the police, he soon becomes entangled with them and will need to go on a homicidal rampage to escape their grasp.

One of the cops on the train is John Barron, newest member of the elite 5-2 Squad, which he will soon find out is actually an execution squad, bypassing the judicial system to execute the worst criminals. Barron is not pleased to find out that this is the squad's purpose, but he is locked in, dealing with the moral dilemmas even as he helps pursue Thorne.

The first part of The Exile is almost nonstop action. Things don't start to slow down until the middle third of the book, at which time we start learning about Thorne's agenda. He is no ordinary psychopath, but is acting on a plan that could lead him to a position of real power. For Barron, he is nothing less than an obsession, and there will come a point where he is willing to endanger himself, his family and his friends to stop Thorne.

With plenty of action and suspense, The Exile makes a fast-paced and entertaining read, but it also has enough clear weaknesses to rate more than a high three-stars. In particular, the plot is far too contrived and driven by too many coincidences. The motivations of the main characters are also questionable: it's hard to tell what makes Barron so perilously obsessed with Thorne. For Thorne's part, it seems implausible that - given his critical role in making the conspiracy succeed - that he would be allowed to be so "hands-on." It's like allowing a boxer to engage in a few street fights right before he has a championship bout, unnecessarily risking the big payout.

I suppose in the post-Ludlum era, we need another writer to provide grand novels of international intrigue, chock full of conspiracy and action. Folsom fills the niche satisfactorily, with many of the same pluses and minuses that Ludlum offered. Of course, he's not prolific enough to really please fans of the genre (only three books in over a decade, around five years between books), but Folsom delivers adequately, if not superbly.