The Chase

The western states have been suffering a serial bank robbery by a man who leaves no witnesses: the Butcher Bandit strikes without hesitation and vanishes without trace, and the pattern of cold efficiency suggests a criminal who has thought further ahead than any law enforcement has yet imagined. Isaac Bell, the Van Dorn Agency's finest detective, is assigned to run him down, beginning a chase that spans the American West and runs directly into the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Clive Cussler's first Isaac Bell novel establishes its hero and its historical methodology in a single propulsive opening.

Scott Brick's voice suits Bell's early twentieth-century detective archetype, laconic competence with the period's particular blend of formal bearing and physical toughness. The historical texture Cussler builds around the chase, the railroad towns, the nascent automobile culture, the earthquake itself, gives the audio version a rich period atmosphere that Brick delivers with the same authority he brings to the series' later entries. At just over twelve hours, The Chase is essential listening for Isaac Bell readers.