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    The Third Rail
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    The Third Rail
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    The Third Rail
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Third Rail

    Written by Michael Harvey

    Narrated by Stephen Hoye

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A woman is shot as she waits for her train to work. An hour later, a second woman is gunned down as she rides an elevated train through the Loop. Two hours after that, a church becomes the target of a chemical weapons attack. The city of Chicago is under siege, and Michael Kelly, cynical cop turned private investigator, just happens to be on the scene when all hell breaks loose.

    Kelly is initially drawn into the case by the killers themselves, then tasked by Chicago's mayor and the FBI to hunt down the bad guys and, all things being equal, put a bullet in them. Kelly, of course, has other ideas. As he gets closer to the truth, his instincts lead him to a retired cop, a shady train company, and an unnerving link to his own past. Meanwhile, Kelly's girlfriend, Rachel Swenson, becomes a pawn in a much larger game, while a weapon that could kill millions ticks away quietly in the very belly of the city.

    The Third Rail     is stylish, sophisticated, edge-of-your-seat suspense from a new modern master.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 20, 2010
    ISBN9780307707345
    Unavailable
    The Third Rail
    Author

    Michael Harvey

    Michael Harvey is the author of seven previous novels, including Brighton and The Chicago Way. He’s also a journalist and documentarian whose work has won multiple News & Documentary Emmys, two Primetime Emmy nominations, and an Academy Award nomination. Raised in Boston, he now lives in Chicago.

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    Reviews for The Third Rail

    3.5/5

    69 ratings10 reviews

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    • 3/5
      A kind of far fetched motive for a serial killer but the story is otherwise OK.
    • 2/5
      THE THIRD RAIL is the third Michael Kelly, policeman turned PI, based thriller, set in Chicago. And Harvey doesn't muck around, throwing Kelly right into the middle of the action from the start of the book, when waiting at an El stop he witnesses a man shooting a woman in the head. In hot pursuit, Kelly is waylaid in an alley and knocked out cold. Which leaves some room for speculation about whether or not the shooter has a partner. Another passenger dies on the same transport system and it's not too long before it becomes obvious that the first shooting was meant to get Kelly involved. The pace of the book doesn't let up at any point from the start to the end - which is just as well because the plot gets very convoluted at points with a big cast of investigators including the Kelly, the local police, FBI and Homeland Security. All the way through though, it's obvious that there is something very personal in the targeted involvement of Kelly, and despite all the other participants, he alone is destined to save the day. Alongside Kelly's story, the story of the killer(s) (it's very quickly revealed that this is a team, although there are aspects of that that need to be left unsaid so as not to spoil the overall plot) is told through a series of revelations. Whilst their story is told, and some of the motivation revealed, it's not until right at the end of the book that all the elements are fully explored. To be honest it wasn't too hard to figure out the main suspect (simply because there didn't seem to be much reason for them to be there otherwise), and it wasn't hard to figure out that the events were going to be connected and therefore where the grudges lay.I think that's probably the only major problem I had with this book - the motivation seemed to be a tad obvious in some instances, overly complex in others and frankly partially unbelievable. Having said that, Kelly is a good character and I liked the fact that I didn't really need to have read the first two books to get a handle on him very quickly. Ultimately THE THIRD RAIL was fast, it was reasonably exciting, and quite readable. But, and this doesn't happen very often, not a lot of the book has stayed with me.
    • 3/5
      This was an easy read (short chapters) with good dialogue but I felt there were too many bad guys to bump this to 4-stars. I couldn't focus on a single villain to hate. I liked the hometown Chicago references and locations.
    • 4/5
      A fast moving book that appears to reach a conclusion with 50 pages still left to go but just because the main perpetrator is out of the picture doesn't mean the story is concluded as there is still a couple of loose threads to wrap up which unveil a deeper conspiracy. The third book in the series which not critical to read in order it does help to fill out the back story of characters and relationships with lead character Michael Kelly. Personally I'd compare to JA Konrath's Dirty Martini but prefer this one.
    • 4/5
      Hard hitting detective in Chicago finds a link to the past and sniper killings in the windy city. Fast read.
    • 3/5
      "The Third Rail" is Michael Harvey's third Michael Kelly novel but my own first experience with the author and his series hero. Kelly is a Chicago ex-cop, a man who still has contacts within the department but knows too much about Chicago politics ever to be tempted back into to the job. He much prefers keeping his hand in the game by offering his investigative services to those Chicago citizens in need of a little private help - even though his work sometimes forces him to spend time with Chicago's slimy mayor. This time around, Kelly finds himself directly involved in the hunt for a serial killer who is terrorizing his city via several very successful random shootings. Kelly was at the scene of the first killing and he almost caught the killer in a chase through snow-filled Chicago, only to learn later that the killer was purposely sucking him into the investigation. The question is why. Harvey knows his city well, and even readers who have never been to Chicago are likely to come away from "The Third Rail" with a sense of what life is like there for the locals. The book's pivotal element is, in fact, based on a real life 1977 incident in which several L trains derailed and fell to the ground, killing eleven people in the process. Michael Kelly, nine years old at the time, survived the crash but is still haunted by what he saw and heard that day. Apparently, he is not the only one. "The Third Rail" is a nice blend of thriller and police procedural (Kelly gets himself attached to the official investigation as a consultant while working on the sly directly for Mayor Sleazy) and fans of the genre will likely enjoy the ride despite the spare style in which Harvey spins his tale. So much happens to Michael Kelly as he frantically tries to catch up with the shooter that Harvey has little time to develop his secondary characters - and even some of his more important ones. Perhaps readers of the first two Kelly books already know so much about Kelly and those closest to him that this is not problem for them, but first-time series readers will find themselves wishing they had been told more about the "Third Rail" characters. And, as it turns out, there are lots of characters and culprits to keep up with: Homeland Security goons, duplicitous FBI agents, crooked cops, psychopaths, corrupt leaders of Chicago's Catholic archdiocese, a nerdy computer wizard, a girlfriend, and, of course, Mayor Sleazy. So much happens, and happens so quickly, it is little wonder that the characters remain somewhat unrealistic to the very end. Reading "The Third Rail" was a bit like frying up a skinny chicken; I kept wishing for a little more meat on the bones. Genre fans who enjoy a more spare approach to their thrillers, however, will probably love this book. If that's your taste, give this one a shot. Rated at: 2.5
    • 3/5
      As I finished the first third of this book, I thought that here is a winner, and I will want to read the first two books in this series. There was a lot I liked but as I got to the final third I became increasingly aware that there was a lot I didn't like, and perhaps I wouldn't be reading the other books after all. While an Easterner for most of my life, I was born and raised in Chicago and enjoyed the book's physical and political descriptions of the city, especially the many references to the elevated system. The pace was very lively, and the characters were interesting, But a lot seemed like stuff I've read many times before, other pieces stretched credibility at times. There are payoffs and threats, inter-agency turf battles, bringing them in dead, not "dead or alive", a PI who is privy to all the dirty secrets and an integral part of the whitewash.......Then, of course, there is the Catholic Church, forever the easy target, once again as dirty as a Wall St. institutional bank, just more competent. Our hero's last scene in a subway tunnel made no sense to me and the ending dragged a bit, each of the last four chapters felt like The Last Chapter, then there was an epilogue.
    • 4/5
      The first two novels in Michael Harvey's Michael Kelly mystery series, The Chicago Way and The Fifth Floor, were both 5-star reads. By those standards, The Third Rail fell a little short, but it is still an excellent mystery. Michael Kelly finds himself at the right place at the right time (or perhaps the wrong place at the wrong time) when a sniper kills a woman on the L. It soon becomes clear the killers have far bigger plans to terrify Chicago, and they want Michael Kelly along for the ride. Harvey lets the bad guys share narration in this novel, and the insight into their actions wasn't as compelling of the rest of the mystery. The ending, however, is delightfully ambiguous.
    • 3/5
      In Chicago a sniper kills a woman as she waits for her train then another woman is killed while on a different train. While authorities in the city scramble to bring things under control, private investigator Michael Kelly is contacted by the killer who starts hinting at what may lie behind the killings. Kelly, an ex-cop, is allowed a tangential role in the hastily established task force and, of course, he becomes pivotal to the events.

      For me thrillers are all about fast-paced plots with impossible situations which a hero will somehow get himself and/or the village/city/world out of just in the nick of time. The Third Rail provided an interesting take on this formula and was certainly a quick read with plenty of tension. I did think the plot was unnecessarily convoluted though and this detracted a little from my enjoyment. I don’t think the book was helped by basing separate threads on completely unrelated real world events, one of which seemed to have no point whatsoever other than to, perhaps, lay the seeds for a future book. Surely a story about a rush to stop a series of terrifying spree killings and uncover the reason behind them should have been enough to sustain a great thriller.

      I did like Michael Kelly and although I haven’t read the earlier books I didn’t feel that I was missing out on anything vital by not knowing his back story. Enough hints are dropped that I managed to create one for him in my imagination. In some ways he’s a typical thriller hero, being impossibly bullet-resistant and all of that, but I am a sucker for a guy who loves his puppy and is cynical about almost everything else. His relationship with his girlfriend, who struggles with the risks associated with his work, was one of the more realistic elements of the book for me and quite a highlight. Another highlight was the depiction of Chicago both physically and politically which helped add a credible element to the novel (though perhaps I am being unfair in thinking that corruption in the city’s political circles adds to the realism).

      The alternating points of view between Kelly, the killer’s and others suited the style of the novel though jumping from first person to third person narrative was a bit awkward with such short chapters. Overall though this is a fast and easy read which you will not want to put down once you’ve started.
    • 4/5
      From my book review blog Rundpinne........An action packed thriller from beginning to end, The Third Rail by Michael Harvey commands the reader’s attention from the very beginning. Women are being murdered in the city of Chicago and PI Kelly, in conjunction with the FBI, launches a massive investigation overturning some very puzzling clues, leaving Kelly all the more perplexed and determined to solve the case. Raw and intense, The Third Rail is filled with an intriguing ensemble of characters, corruption, deception and plenty of heart stopping plot twists to keep the reader guessing and reading long into the night. This is Michael Harvey’s third novel in his Michael Kelly series and can easily stand alone as Harvey weaves into the story information from the previous novels. For suspense thriller fans, Michael Harvey is an author to keep an eye on. The Third Rail is an excellent choice for those who enjoy being kept up reading an excellent thriller.