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    Niceville: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Niceville: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Niceville: A Novel
    Audiobook14 hours

    Niceville: A Novel

    Written by Carsten Stroud

    Narrated by Ann Marie Lee

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Something is wrong in Niceville...

    A boy literally disappears from Main Street.  A security camera captures the moment of his instant, inexplicable vanishing. An audacious bank robbery goes seriously wrong: four cops are gunned down; a TV news helicopter is shot and spins crazily out of the sky, triggering a disastrous cascade of events that ricochet across twenty different lives over the course of just thirty-six hours.

    Nick Kavanaugh, a cop with a dark side, investigates. Soon he and his wife, Kate, a distinguished lawyer from an old Niceville family, find themselves struggling to make sense not only of the disappearance and the robbery but also of a shadow world, where time has a different rhythm and where justice is elusive.

    ...Something is wrong in Niceville, where evil lives far longer than men do.

    Compulsively readable, and populated with characters who leap off the page, Niceville will draw you in, excite you, amaze you, horrify you, and, when it finally lets you go, make you sorry you have to leave.

    Read the first thirty-five pages.  Find out why Harlan Coben calls Carsten Stroud the master of "the nerve-jangling thrill ride."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 12, 2012
    ISBN9780449008867
    Unavailable
    Niceville: A Novel
    Author

    Carsten Stroud

    Carsten Stroud is the author of Cuba Strait, Black Water Transit, the award-winning Sniper's Moon, and other novels. His nonfiction titles include Deadly Force; Iron Bravo, chosen for the U.S. Army's recommended reading list; and the New York Times bestseller Close Pursuit. He lives on the shores of Lake Huron.

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    Reviews for Niceville

    3.5/5

    114 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      reminds me of Stephen King's The Stand in ways....
      no, more like "It". Crazy messed up town w/ baaaad things happening.....

      Wrapped up well. Tidy.
    • 4/5
      Good writing, the story goes on nicely and is well plotted, but... meh. A first in a trilogy should leave me desperate to get my hand on the next two, but I feel I've had enough. I liked the ghosts, but the bank robbery, not so much. Although I kind of like the bad guys. These were about half and half, so I only liked half the book. That's not enough to go for the next one. But still, 3,5 stars. I'd say that's pretty good.
    • 3/5
      Rating: 3 of 5A boy, walking home from school in broad daylight on a busy street, vanished (literally!) and an old southern town with a dark history were the two reasons I chose Niceville. Had I know it was the first in a trilogy (does anyone write standalone books anymore?!) I might not have borrowed it.That's not to say I was disappointed with Niceville just ... underwhelmed.Stroud hooked me from the first chapter (crafty devil) and ended each chapter with just enough to keep me turning the page (he's obviously an expert tease), but the next chapter didn't resolve the previous one. Instead, it switched to another character and their subplot. I had to wade through some pretty blatant info dump (the kind where one character tells another character lengthy details he had to have already known), lazy characterizations (Chinese dude as IT whiz kid) and downright stupid choices by some of those characters to finally arrive at the climax, which felt rushed and, well, boring. There were genuinely creepy moments sprinkled throughout the story, so I thought for sure the climax would take it up a notch. Sadly, it didn't.My gut tells me the juicy stuff, the real mystery and adventure, will be in the sequel. Niceville was simply used as a way to introduce the main characters, establish the town's history, and hint at something darker yet to be uncovered. I'll admit to being curious about Rainey Teague and who, or what, he really is. Same with Crater Sink. Is that curiosity strong enough that I'll pick up The Homecoming? I'm leaning toward yes, but only time will tell.Overall, if you're looking for a fast-paced, multiple POV, masculine mystery with some paranormal activity, you'll likely enjoy this book.Disclaimer: Contains racism and stereotypes.
    • 2/5
      t sense of place, a couple well developed characters and three distinct plots that never ever come together. They cross each other only through brushes of characters, and that makes for three under developed stories that have weak and/or no endings. Rarely when I finish a book do I have such a feeling of being lead astray by an author (it's my choice to stay until the bitter end) but this was one of those times. Three good stories, wasted!
    • 3/5
      Niceville is not a nice place to live. That's what I gathered from this book. When I first read the book's description, I thought it was just a mystery/thriller...I didn't catch on to the horror elements until someone said, "There are dead people that come back to life."OK...yes. There is a mystery to solve, but it is SCARY. At one point, I thought about putting the book in the freezer. I didn't really understand why some of the characters were introduced or why some events occurred, but the overarching story was a good one. I guess you had to read the story of Coker, etc to understand the story of Nick, Kate, etc. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it (at least as not as much as Jesse). It's a good read if you like being just a little scared, but not entirely grossed out (like in a Stephen King novel).
    • 4/5
      I didn't really know what I was getting myself into with this one. I read about it, some quick little blurb somewhere, and it seemed like it could be a "lose yourself in here" kind of book. I think the quick synopsis is something like "boy suddenly disappears, like caught-on-camera disappears. town in a tizzy. something's weird in niceville."I thought to myself, sure! that sounds good to me...Now that I've read it (rather quickly), I find myself having a difficult time really describing it. So, the little two-liner above isn't inaccurate. it's just not accurate either.Niceville is like reading a Stephen King without the gore. Or maybe a Grisham with ghosts. Or maybe nothing at all like Stephen King or John Grisham because it just doesn't fit.It was well written. It was VERY well populated with characters. It was intriguing. It was funny (surprisingly). It was a horror story, kind of, but not gory, really. It was a thriller, maybe even psychological, but maybe it's more of a crime story. It would make a good crime tv series. Especially since I know that there are more coming (yay!).So, what's it about? It's about this town, Niceville, where things aren't so nice. (that's not surprising, I don't think, from either the title or the cover image). There's a cliff and a sink hole that seem to make people act ... odd. There's a missing boy, then something happens (i hate spoilers), and then the boy is back. Kind of. Or maybe not.But then there's also the bank robbers. There're the pervie side-characters. There's the genius techie. There're Nick, Kate, and Kate's dad. There's Glynis Ruelle. And there's Claire Mercer. There's also so much more. Again, I was impressed with the amount packed into this book, particularly because it read so quickly. I find that a rare skill -- the ability to introduce a reader to a high number of characters, to allow the reader to really get to know the characters, and to do so while moving the plot(s) along quickly and effortlessly.I highly recommend, but I also warn it's dark. If you want something light & fluffy... um, I'm probably not your girl. But this is on the darker side of dark. But not squeamish. Not nightmare. Just ... you know, that slight discomfort in the quiet 2 a.m. when everyone else in the house is asleep...
    • 3/5
      This novel is a hot mess set in an old Georgia town. I love a good ghostly horror yarn along the lines of Stephen King. This did have elements of that but it was mixed up with a bank robbery that didn't seem to have anything to do with the horror element. The novel starts off with a bang when a child goes missing after staring into a spooky old mirror on his way home from school. His mother goes missing, possibly have jumped into some crater lake where things go in but don't go out, and his father violently dies. The boy is eventually found in a grave in the arms of a corpse and the grave has never been opened from the outside, good stuff right? From there it is all down hill. There is bank robbery and some old time family feud. I never did understand what the reaping of the bodies for the harvest bit was about. I wish the author had either picked a crime novel or a Gothic horror one. The plot was too much like whiplash for me. I would just get some juicy horror bit, like a creepy old basement, only to be yanked out back to the bank robbery plot which I didn't care about. There was too much going on plot wise and it felt like important elements necessary to tell the story were neglected. I kept waiting for the story to come together in some satisfying way at the end and then I turned the last page and realized that it never was. If you are looking for a truly terrifying trip to the Georgia backwoods, Those Across the River is a better choice for Gothic horror fans like myself.
    • 4/5
      Book Review - Niceville by Carsten StroudNicevilleCarsten StroudTrade Paperback Advance Reader’s Copy400 pages Knopf DoubledayPublication Date: June 12, 2012ISBN-13: 978-0307700957Buried in Niceville is something evil… and the harvest is coming.Carsten Stroud is probably not a name that immediately comes to mind when discussing horror or dark-suspense stories. In fact, he’s probably most well-known for his politically-driven, suspenseful mystery novels than for anything else. However, Mr. Stroud has found a way to channel all the coolest (read darkest and weirdest) parts of modern horror into one ominous place, Niceville. Stroud’s everyman style and the murky content of Niceville will inevitably elicit comparisons to Stephen King, Clive Barker, or Graham Masterton and while this happens quite often when authors cross into the horror genre it’s totally justified in this instance, and, for good reason. While their styles are complimentary and very similar (smart-mouthed characters and irreverent dialogue backed by an eerie premise) Stroud manages to incorporate elements of Southern Gothic, ghost-realms, Quentin Tarantino-like characters, bloody gun-battles, American Indian folklore, paranormal mystery, and some of the nastiest, most flawed antagonists you’ll ever come across in modern, dark fiction. It’s an outlandish combination, to be sure, but it all works and works quite well, in my estimation.I have to admit that to me Niceville read very much like a Stephen King novel. Quickly paced, easy to read, and journeyman in approach much of Niceville’s horror is found “off page,” by which I mean it’s left somewhat to our own imaginations (especially when moving through the realms where the dead reside or when the living are murdered.) And my imagination can, when pushed just right, conjure more horrifying images than could ever be written, something that King has done perfectly for many years and that Stroud has tapped into. With a name like Niceville you might immediately think of a sociable, idyllic village with friendly neighbors, an antiquated town-square, award winning rose bushes, and fun-filled, summer parades. You couldn’t be more wrong. Niceville is a very dark place. Children have disappeared at an alarming rate there which has the distinction of having the highest rate of stranger abduction in the country. When a security camera catches the most recent abduction it only fuels the mystery. One moment Rainey is there, on camera. The next he’s simply vanished. When he’s found alive in a sealed crypt the confusion deepens. Who, or what, is abducting the children of Niceville and why? And, what does a high-profile bank robbery, 80 years of disappearances, and a black lake at the edge of town have to do with each other? When you enter Niceville you’ll find out.There’s a grocery list of characters in Niceville and the story moves from many of their perspectives, sometimes rather abruptly, and while that is slightly confusing and a little interruptive it bears mentioning that Stroud reels all the characters in together nicely as the story progresses and delivers a neat, tightly-woven climax that does not disappoint. While the numerous characters may seem a drawback to some I rather enjoyed the weaving together of the many characters, especially since Stroud brought them all together in a surprisingly satisfying (and spine-tingling) ending. If you like Southern Gothic, Stephen King, imaginative horror, larger-than-life characters, or dark suspense then I recommend Niceville for you.4 out of 5 starsThe Alternative Southeast Wisconsin
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed Niceville. Mystery/Horror is my kinda book. I assumed it'd have been a straightforward kidnapping, I didn't realise ghosts were involved when I purchased it. Maybe if I'd known that I wouldn't have picked it up. But I'm glad I did! It was incredibly well written, every chapter ending with something that made you want more. The characters were cleverly intertwined, and even though there were quite a few, I still knew who was who. Brilliantly written. I'm still not sure about the ending, but I genuinely enjoyed reading this book. I had shivers down my spine at points.