Watchlist [Audiobook, CD, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Jeffery Deaver (Author), Alfred Molina (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2010

From International Thriller Writers, comes Watchlist: two powerful novellas featuring the same thrilling cast of characters in one major suspenseful package. The Chopin Manuscript and The Copper Bracelet are collaborations of some of the world’s greatest thriller writers, including Lee Child, Joseph Finder, Lisa Scottoline, and Jeffery Deaver, who conceived the characters and set the plots in motion. The other authors each wrote a chapter and Deaver then completed what he started, bringing both novellas to their startling conclusions. In the first novella, The Chopin Manuscript, former war crimes investigator Harold Middleton possesses a previously unknown score by Frederic Chopin. But he is unaware that, locked within its handwritten notes, lies a secret that now threatens the lives of thousands of Americans. As he races from Poland to America to uncover the mystery of the manuscript, Middleton will be accused of murder, pursued by federal agents, and targeted by assassins. But the greatest threat will come from a shadowy figure from his past: the man known only as Faust. Harold Middleton returns in The Copper Bracelet — the explosive sequel to The Chopin Manuscript — as he’s drawn into an international terror plot that threatens to send India and Pakistan into full-scale nuclear war. Careening from Nice to London and Moscow to Kashmir to prevent nuclear disaster, Middleton is unaware that his prey has changed and that the act of terror is far more diabolical than he knows. Will he discover the identity of the Scorpion in time to halt an event that will pit the United States, China, and Russia against each other at the brink of World War III?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fans of the TV series 24 will best appreciate this two-part serial thriller written by 22 members of International Thriller Writers. Based on an idea by Deaver (The Broken Window), who provides the opening and closing chapters of each segment, the volume recounts the adventures of middle-aged Harold Middleton, an ex-U.S. military intelligence officer. In part one, The Chopin Manuscript, the discovery of a previously unknown Chopin score leads to murders, betrayals, and frantic efforts to stop a villain code-named Faust from carrying out a terrorist outrage. Part two, The Copper Bracelet, sets Middleton and his allies on the track of a Kashmiri planning the assassination of the U.S. secretary of state. While the contributors include many of the biggest names in the genre (Lee Child, Joseph Finder, Gayle Lynds, S.J. Rozan, etc.), the constraints of the form all but assure homogenized prose, thin characters, and stock action scenes atypical of their solo work. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Books written by groups of writers are not new. The most famous probably remains the scandalous Naked Came the Stranger (1969), published pseudonymously by Penelope Ashe but written by a group of newspaper reporters. This one is a thriller—two short novels, really, featuring Harold Middleton, a former military intelligence officer and war-crimes investigator who gets embroiled in international intrigue and derring-do. Jeffery Deaver came up with the basic plots and wrote each story’s opening and closing chapters, while various other writers (Joseph Finder, Erica Spindler, and Lee Child, among them) contributed a chapter. The result is exciting and fast paced (Middleton foils a couple of evil plots while battling some nasty people), and the format gives readers a unique opportunity to watch a story evolving before their eyes, as each writer begins where the previous one left off and adds something new to the mix. Considering that each contributor has his or her own distinct voice, the novel flows surprisingly well, too. Not merely a literary experiment, but a very good thriller in its own right. --David Pitt --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged; Unabridged edition (January 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1441826653
• ISBN-13: 978-1441826657
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 5.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,726,346 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #48 in Books > Books on CD > Authors, A-Z > ( D ) > Deaver, Jeffery

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Non-Stop Action, March 17, 2010

By 

Sam Sattler (Spring, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Watchlist: Two Serial Thrillers in One Killer Book (Hardcover)

The two "serial thrillers" offered in "Watchlist" are the product of the collaborative effort of 22 of the finest thriller writers in the world. Among the authors participating in the project are: Linda Barnes, Lee Child, Lisa Scottoline, Erica Spindler, David Hewson and Jeffrey Deaver (who created the basic characters and wrote the first and last chapters of the two novels). "The Chopin Manuscript" was first offered as an audio book and was named 2008 Audio Book of the year by the Audio Publisher's Association. Its follow-up, "The Copper Bracelet," throws several of the same characters into a new adventure some two years after the conclusion of the first book.

And as bad as "The Chopin Manuscript" is, "The Copper Bracelet" is equally as good.

The two books have much in common but one gets the sense that the authors did not really hit their stride with the concept until the second book. "The Chopin Manuscript" reads less like a cohesive novel than it does a competition among its 15 writers to ensure that their individual chapters contain more outlandish action than the chapter immediately preceding theirs. So little time is spent on character development that the rapid-fire adventure seems to be happening to cartoon characters rather than to real people - and the constant losing-and-regaining of the upper hand plus last second rescues of main characters will test the patience of readers.

"The Copper Bracelet," authored by 9 of the first book's 15 writers, plus 7 new ones, spends more time developing characters and explaining their motivations. As a result, although much of the action in this second book is every bit as wild as that in the first, readers will find it easier to suspend their disbelief because of the emotional attachment they will feel toward this story's characters, hero and villain, alike.

Harold Middleton, a former military intelligence officer who has more recently functioned as a war-crimes investigator, is the main character in both books. Other recurring characters include Middleton's daughter Charlotte, a talented young Polish violinist called Felicia Kaminski, and several members of what Middleton calls The Volunteers, a small group of trusted colleagues who help him in his investigations and who are willing to share the violence directed their way by those wanting to stop their snooping. The collection's finer villains, in particular, Devras Sikari, his son Archer, and their female accomplice, Jana, are reserved for the second book.

"Watchlist" transports its readers from Virginia to Washington D.C., Poland, Italy, Pakistan, Kashmir, London and Paris, among other stops, with much violence and nonstop action sure to be had at each location. Despite the unevenness of the two stories, this one will appeal to thriller fans and readers intrigued about the process by which the two books were written. The second book is such a huge improvement over the first, in fact, that I find myself hoping that the authors will collaborate on a third.

Authors of The Chopin Manuscript: Jeffrey Deaver, David Hewson, James Grady, S.J. Rozan, Erica Spindler, John Ramsey Miller, David Corbett, John Gilstrap, Joseph Finder, Jim Fusilli, Peter Spiegelman, Ralph Pezzullo, Lisa Scottoline, P.J. Parrish, Lee Child

Authors of The Copper Bracelet: Jeffrey Deaver, Gayle Lynds, David Hewson, Jim Fusilli, John Gilstrap, Joseph Finder, Lisa Scottoline, David Corbett, Linda Barnes, Jenny Siler, David Liss, P.J. Parish, Brett Battles, Lee Child, Jon Land, James Phelan

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Collaboration of Authors, January 28, 2010

By 

Konrad Kern (OFallon, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Watchlist: Two Serial Thrillers in One Killer Book (Hardcover)

Jeffery Deaver helms a collaborative effort by 21 thriller writers--including Lee Child, Lisa Scottoline and Joseph Finder--that includes two novellas--The Chopin Manuscript, in which Harold Middleton discovers that a score by Chopin holds a deadly secret, and its sequel The Copper Bracelet, which finds Harold drawn into a plot that could lead to a nuclear war. Bt.
This was an interesting collaboration of authors, all very qualified and talented thriller writers. As a whole these were two very entertaining novels, though I preferred The Copper Bracelet a wee bit more even though it was a bit more intricate. I like the idea behind this type of collaboration but to me it seems that it takes away some of the fluidity you get from a single author. With the talent that was presented though, it still came out a quality thriller sure to satisfy any readers of any of these authors.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Start By Deaver but Poorly Done By Most Other Contributors, November 10, 2010

By 

James N Simpson (Gold Coast, QLD Australia) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Watchlist: Two Serial Thrillers in One Killer Book (Hardcover)

Back in your primary school days you probably partook in the exercise of everyone in the class writing a paragraph then passing the paper to the person sitting next to them who wrote the next paragraph, passed it to the next person and so on until everyone in the class had contributed to each of the 30 or so stories. Well that is exactly what the publishers of Watchlist did for the two stories contained within, with thriller writers who various levels of success in the real world. Well originally the first story The Chopin Manuscript was an audio book exercise but more or less they did the same thing. Not an original concept by any means (unless maybe for a spoken book project) but for a written novel, it has been done plenty of times before. The first time I came across this concept in a published book was for a book called Naked Came the Manatee. Since then I've come across various tackling a project like this maybe ten times, although none of the finished stories have been masterpieces or even that memorable as I can't even remember those books' names. The same forgetableness occurs with Watchlist's two stories, The Chopin Manuscript and The Copper Bracelet. In fact this is probably the worst effort of this sort of project that I've read.

Jeffery Deaver starts of both stories well, but most of the other authors seemed to either not really get the spirit of the project, or just plain didn't have the ability to continue the story well. With the first couple of authors it seems everyone must have fought to be the writer who started the novel, as they are completely different characters with the editor maybe giving those stories back after they were unsuccessful at being the opening author and saying well here's the order your in, live with it, read the previous and link yours somehow. I mean we start of with a piano tuner chatting to a man who unbeknownst to him has just murdered the other occupants of the building. Then we go to a guy (who becomes the main character) waiting for a plane and being detained by the Polish police with a weak link of he had lunch with the guy. Then we jump to Italy where a struggling Polish immigrant is busking and being harassed by a homeless guy who it is pretty obvious isn't going to just be a homeless guy with the weak link, the guy was her uncle. Where's the spirit of the project in just creating a new characters and settings, instead of having to further develop the characters from the previous chapters, pick up the scene from where the previous author left off, using what's already there, maybe put in a twist and let the next author continue on from the challenges in the plot written in the chapter before? The biggest problem of all for both stories, is that they are pretty boring and with most authors' work a struggle to get through. The only thing that keeps you going is you know the contributions by the author you are reading will be over very soon and you're hoping a better author will save the story or at least make it more interesting. Never really happens though!