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    Three
    Three
    Three
    Audiobook (abridged)4 hours

    Three

    Written by Ted Dekker

    Narrated by Chris Fabry

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Imagine answering your cell phone to a mysterious voice that gives you three minutes to confess your sin or you die. You have one huge problem: you don't have a clue what that sin is.

    Kevin Parson escaped a twisted childhood and built his own life, leaving his bizarre past behind him. . .until his cell phone rings and a gravelly voice calling himself Slater tells him he has just three minutes to confess his “sin” or his car will be blown to pieces.

    Kevin panics. Who would make such a demand, and what sin is he supposed to confess? Not sure what else to do, Kevin swerves into a parking lot and runs from his car. . . just in case. Exactly three minutes later, a massive explosion sets his world on a collision course with madness.

    Obsessed both with Kevin's downfall and the number 3, Slater initiates a game in which Kevin must answer riddles to avoid Slater's destructive, murderous retribution.

    From #1 bestselling author Ted Dekker comes a powerful story of good, evil, and all that lies between.

    • The perfect blend of suspense, mystery, and horror in one psychological thriller
    • Now a major motion picture!
    • Also by bestselling author Ted Dekker: The Circle Series, Saint, and Sinner
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThomas Nelson
    Release dateJun 30, 2009
    ISBN9781418575113

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    Reviews for Three

    4/5

    525 ratings44 reviews

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    • 5/5
      The battle between oneself.... Dekker describes this battle in a way that is hard to imagine, but amazingly written and destined. Dekker could very well be one of the best thriller writers...period! This is my first read of Dekkers and I will thoroughly enjoy reading more of him. This book sent chills down my spine and nectar to my brain!
    • 5/5
      The battle between oneself.... Dekker describes this battle in a way that is hard to imagine, but amazingly written and destined. Dekker could very well be one of the best thriller writers...period! This is my first read of Dekkers and I will thoroughly enjoy reading more of him. This book sent chills down my spine and nectar to my brain!
    • 1/5
      First sin, answering your phone while driving. That is dangerous.
    • 5/5
      Really enjoyed the twists and turns in this book.
    • 3/5
      His cellphone rings and twenty-eight-year-old seminary student Kevin Parson is thrown into the middle of what seems to be a madman’s game. He must confess his sin to the world or risk the consequences . . . but Kevin, a quiet, unassuming, naïve young man, has no idea why anyone would want to hurt him and doesn’t know what dark secret from his past this madman called Slater wants him to reveal.A bomb explodes and the cat-and-mouse game between hunter and hunted begins. As Slater relentlessly stalks Kevin and the danger escalates, who will win this malicious game?Strong characters, an intriguing premise, and a top-notch telling of the tale all combine to create a truly riveting mystery. The suspense is palpable; the tension unending. The captivating story unfolds through several points of view: Kevin, his friend Samantha Sheer [who works for the California Bureau of Investigation], FBI Special Agent Jennifer Peters, and Richard Slater. In this evocative tale of good, evil, and what lies between them, readers will find that the more they believe they understand the less they really comprehend. And the narrative, for most of the telling of the tale, keeps the reader glued to the page.But, then, the story takes an unforeseen turn, an unexpected twist that turns everything upside down and strains credibility. Consequently, many readers are going to feel cheated by this regrettable turn of events and the narrative’s disappointing denouement.
    • 1/5
      This book sounded like it had an interesting premise, but it quickly turned into a mess.

      The plot revolves around a man who has a form of multiple personality disorder than is supposedly completely unprecedented. He is the 'everyman' struggling between good and evil, while his other two personalities represent the good and evil that every one struggles with.

      Had the book included this plot in the synopsis, rather than using it as the twist ending, I would probably have been okay with it. Instead, the author uses various gimmicks to try to keep up the suspense on whether or not there is a serial killer in this book, or if the main character is secretly housing multiple personalities.
    • 3/5
      By all accounts, I should have figured this one out. It was twisty, yet familiar; shocking, yet predictable. That alone deserves three looks from me. I think I may have dated Kevin years ago. A mild-mannered man-child who simmers just below the surface. After reading Thr3e, I am glad I shed myself of him.

      This was a very fast book for me to read. My eyes flew over the words without compromising my comprehension. I think that fully describes the depth of the novel. It is not Sherlock Holmes by any stretch, but is entertaining enough for me to read more by this author over time.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      WOWSERS!!! Now THIS is how a psychological thriller should be written. Dekker places the mind games bar high on this one. So engrossed was I in the plot, that I did not see the twist coming!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Thr3e by Ted DekkerKevin gets an alarming phone call while driving home one day. He has three minutes to tell the world his "sin" or his car will explode. He continues to get threatening calls, with impossible to answer riddles and dire consequences if he does not comply.A fast paced psychological thriller with an intense original plot. The characters are well developed, especially Kevin. With descriptive details, intense dialog, secrets revealed, twists and turns. I was on the edge of my seat. I highly recommend Thr3e to those who love a great psychological thriller.
    • 4/5
      magine a world where ABSOLUTELY nothing is what it seems. A world where even craft-masters M. Night Shyamalan and Alfred Hitchcock couldn't predict what's around the next bend. Kevin is a Seminary student with a big problem - he's being stalked by a madman who knows too much - more than even Kevin, at times. As he is forced to deal with the past he fought so hard to escape, Kevin wonders the whole time if he can truly find freedom, even with the help of an old friend and an FBI agent running from demons of her own. Even if you think you know, you still have NO idea.

      One of the things I really liked about "Three" was its multiple layers. It was so well-written that, even though the answer to the whole story was presented at the beginning, it was not obvious until it smacked you in the face at the end.
    • 1/5
      The most shocking revelation that can be attributed to this book is that it averages four stars.

      I really wanted to like this, because I like Travis Thrasher. However, from the contrived title (Thr3e) to the contrived plot and characters, this will be the first and last Ted Dekker book that I read.
    • 1/5
      The most shocking revelation that can be attributed to this book is that it averages four stars.

      I really wanted to like this, because I like Travis Thrasher. However, from the contrived title (Thr3e) to the contrived plot and characters, this will be the first and last Ted Dekker book that I read.
    • 2/5
      While this book was really well-written and "good" it was WAY TOO SCARY for me!
    • 3/5
      This book was pretty okay. It read like an extended episode of Criminal Minds, but I really felt it could have been about half as long and still had the same impact. Overall, not awful, but not great either.
    • 5/5
      Dekker is one of those authors that I either love his books or hate his books. Hardly do I find one I'm indifferent about. This one I absolutely loved - maybe the best one of his I've read. The suspense is fantastic and the plot well designed and well written. The twisted ending caught me off guard and was perfect. Highly recommend!!
    • 4/5
      For the snapshot, I'd have to say that overall, Thr3e is great work. It manages to do a balancing act between the scientific psychobabble and actual action and keep all the plot threads pointed squarely in the proper direction without belaboring one side or the other or leaving you with mismatched loose ends. There's a small handful of issues, but for the most part it's solidly in the "recommended" camp, especially if you're a fan of Fight Club, Invisible Monsters or anything else where there's a whole lot going on behind the scenes and everything you know - or are told - could be wrong.

      The premise: Kevin Parsons is a young seminary student, preparing for his thesis and generally living a good life. That is, until a mysterious man named Slater calls him with the ultimatum: Confess in the next three minutes, or I blow up your car. The madman makes good on his threat when Kevin proves unable or unwilling to make his confession or to solve a riddle Slater gave him; from there the game progresses. The riddles get odder, the explosions get bigger, and everything points to something in Kevin's past, something unforgivable. Along the way we bring in Jennifer Peters, an FBI psychologist on the hunt for the Riddle Killer - who may or may not be Slater - and Kevin's childhood friend, Samantha.

      On the good: The language is clear and concise, without nagging, dangling sentence fragments or other technical faux pas. The characters all prove interesting, well developed and believable, with a wide variety of types, professions and mannerisms; while juggling this circus, Dekker manages to avoid having any of the characters feel like they're just puppets or clones of others, spitting out dialogue or performing actions that would run counter to them merely because the character who SHOULD be doing it isn't available. Given the final punchline of the book, I found this to be doubly impressive.

      The multiple threads of what's going on - the hunt for the Riddle Killer, the personal attacks levied against protagonist Kevin Parsons, the broken family and warped past of Kevin and his childhood friend (and pseudo-love interest) Samantha - are all handled wonderfully, juggling between them without stepping on any toes and providing enough information that you're intrigued but without making it too obvious as to what's going on until the final act. There's a very Sixth Sense or Fight Club style to the whole thing, where if you come back to it after knowing what it was all about you'll see the clues and tip offs everywhere, but the way they were presented as merely part of the tale managed to not call undue attention to them. Managing that trick has always been something that impresses me.

      Certain sequences in the book - in particular the return trip to Kevin's childhood home, and the things we find there, or Kevin's childhood confrontation with the boy who may be the young Slater - do an excellent job of raising the creep-o-meter without anything appearing to be directly threatening... at least at first. The final confrontation is also superbly written and despite being a trifle heavy on the religious metaphors manages to ironically avoid the deus ex machina that some might be expecting when a writer so thoroughly corners his characters.

      Now for the bad: The last three pages or so are just slop. We could have ended when the guilty party was apprehended and closed the curtains; putting the sugar-and-spice spin on things felt forced and unrealistic compared to the 400 or so pages that came before it.

      I thought I'd have more to list there, but honestly now I can't think of what it might be. I suppose that goes back to the good column, if all I can think of to say is that the epilogue kinda stinks.

      Again, overall I heartily recommend this book to anyone who's into thrillers or tales of mental instability; Dekker's prose alone is worth the trip and the fact that it's wrapped around an excellent tale is just icing on the cake.
    • 4/5
      Creepy to the core! This novel had me nervous whether I was reading it or just thinking about it. The psychological aspect of this thriller leaves you on the edge of your seat and even questioning your own sanity! Loved it!
    • 4/5
      Here we have your typical suspense thriller novel where we find ourselves following along as the protaganist tries to discover a serial bomber / killer before anyone is killed. We start off fast with the killer calling the victim and telling him to confess his sin in three minutes or his car will be blown up. From here we follow increasingly violent episodes all the while trying to determine what this sin is he should be confessing. While I found this enjoyable and a quick read, there was nothing that special about this novel that will make me remember it in a few months time. There was a twist at the end that isn't that difficult to figure out if you're paying attention. The twist was interesting and made sense within the context of this novel, but it's execution was a bit disappointing as it was just too easy to see coming from far away. Despite that, not a bad novel and not a bad way to spend a weekend.
    • 5/5
      Now this was my kind of story! Ted Dekker has done it again with this action packed thriller. Reminiscent of ‘Fight Club’ with suspicions of a split personality at work, the ending was still a total surprise, even when I thought I had it figured out. Bravo! A seminary student starts getting threatening calls from a psycho killer who speaks in riddles. Kevin has to solve the riddle before something bad happens (usually a bomb). He never manages to figure it out and ... you guessed it - car bombs, bus bombs, house bombs - keep going off all over the city. Jennifer, a beautiful federal agent, is on the case (for personal reasons), and Kevin's childhood friend Samantha also offers to help solve the mystery. The plot thickens BUT ... this is so not your typical suspense thriller. I loved this book. I can't say more without blowing it, except to say, read this book!
    • 2/5
      I read this because it was recommended on The Ultimate Reading List, which I've been working through. It was listed in the "Inspirational Fiction" section (the Christian Fiction) section, but one of the fairly good things about it is it's not at all preachy even though the man-in-peril in this one, Keven Parson, is a seminary student. The bad thing though is that its basically a routine suspense/thriller with a twist--that... Well, I didn't see it coming, but once it arrived I rolled my eyes, because it is so cliched, yet unrealistic it falls into the evil twin sort of plot. The writing isn't anything special--Koontz and King are both better stylists and better at drawing out the suspense. And in terms of the spiritual message, well, Dekker is no C.S. Lewis. The love interest was predictable, and because it's Christian Fiction we have to believe in a 28-year-old male virgin and sexual tension over a kiss on the cheek, and an evil villain whose worst swear word is "puke face." Have to give it points for it making me read it to the end though--because I was interested in the secret of Kevin's upbringing.
    • 3/5
      Flawed but intriguing, Dekker's Three examines the duality of man and our battle against the evil within. Add a plus for an ending many will consider a surprise.
    • 5/5
      This book impressed me which is fairly hard to do as far as books go. I couldn't put it down, and was satisfied and torn up by the conclusion all at the same time. I loved it!
    • 3/5
      I thought it was a good book. I enjoyed it. I wasn't crazy in love with it. I read it for my class, as we were required to read a Christian Fiction book. I could care less for the Christian references and missed the nitty gritty stuff that Christian Fiction just wouldn't have, but otherwise it was good. It was almost written at a young adult level too, which I had mixed opinions about.
    • 3/5
      A young man named Kevin Parson is a seminary student at the Divinity School of the Pacific, South in Long Beach, California. Keenly intelligent, with a mysterious past, it has been said that he views the world through the eyes of an adult with the innocence of a child. His parents died in a car accident when he was one years old, and he was raised by his Aunt Balinda and her husband Eugene with his cousin Bob, 8 years older and mentally handicapped.One afternoon, while driving home from school, he receives a telephone call from someone who calls himself Slater. If he doesn't confess his sin to the world, the car he is driving will explode in exactly three minutes ... and it does.Enter Jennifer Peters, FBI special agent, whose brother Roger was killed by someone known as The Riddle Killer three months ago. This killer leaves a riddle to solve in a specified period of time (as did Slater); when it's not solved, someone dies. Jennifer had been working on the case, and when she got too close, The Riddle Killer took someone in her family. She takes a personal interest in Kevin's case because of this.We also meet Samantha (Sam), Kevin's only childhood friend. Her father was a cop, and now she works for the CBI. She is on leave from her job because she just moved, and when Kevin calls her, she responds and starts working the investigation as well.As more riddles come in, Sam and Jennifer race against the clock to find Slater and to stop him before it's too late.This was my first foray into Dekker's writing, and because so many people love his writing, I expected to be pulled in right away. We have a possible serial killer, a family with dark secrets, and a handsome protagonist whose naivete' draws Jennifer into caring a little too much for him.As I read, the story felt implausible at best. The attraction that a seasoned FBI agent felt for a victim that she didn't know; Kevin's character, the dialogue, even the action .. I just rode the surface and never felt involved with the story or it's characters. It felt a bit forced to me, and I was always conscious that I was reading a story (Hardcore readers will know what I mean by that). There is a twist near the end that I almost didn't see coming, but even there, the pacing seemed off. I know that this one was made into a movie, and I can't help thinking that in this case, the movie was probably better.Although this book was not for me, I seem to be in the minority on this, so I invite you to visit the Amazon and/or Goodreads pages for other reviews. QUOTESThank you, Aunt Balinda, for sharing this with me. I am nothing. Thank you, you lousy, sick, twisted auntie for slamming this nugget of truth down my throat. I am nothing, nothing, nothing. Thank you, you demon from hell for gouging out my eyes and pounding me into the ground and ....Turn the other cheek shouldn't apply to sick sewer rats with knives in their hands who licked neighborhood girls' windows.
    • 5/5
      Great story. Great action that keeps you wanting to turn the last page. The mark of a good book is one that keeps you guessing to the very end and in the end you find out that you never had it right in the first place. 
    • 4/5
      I adore Ted Dekker's writing and I saw this one at the store the other day. I saw the author's name and the cover and knew it was going into my basket. I was not disappointed! As usual, the writing was thrilling, creepy, and fast paced. I read through the book in no time as I just could not put it down.The story itself is about the timeless battle between good and evil and Dekker put his twist on it. If you like a creepy and suspenseful psychological thriller then this is one to read.
    • 4/5
      THR3E is an unusual book, to say the least. While it begins like many movie-style plot lines – man gets a phone call, do something or something will blow up – nothing is quite as it seems in this mysterious story that explores the connections between good and evil in the life of each fallen human being. I see that the book actually has been made into a film (no wonder I kept imagining it as a movie!), but I haven’t seen it myself.Originally released in 2003, the mass-market paperback is now hitting shelves in bookstores. This is a ‘clean’ mystery/suspense read; there isn’t any cursing or explicit sensuality, though there is violence, darkness, and a disturbing history of a warped childhood. Still, it isn’t explicit or TOO scary in my opinion.There are some faith-based themes here obviously, with the struggle between good and evil being the obvious one. There are also explorations of adoption with God as a father, personal vs. abstract faith, and others. However, this isn’t mainly an exploration of personal faith, and when Dekker does attempt to pull that into focus momentarily it quickly slips into the background and doesn’t weave through the rest of the novel.Due to the surprising plot twists it’s difficult to go deeply into the plot of THR3E without revealing spoilers, but it certainly is a mind-bending read that will have you wanting to go back and read it through again once you’re finished. I will say though, that the focus on action and suspense does leave a little something to be desired in the realm of character development. I never truly saw Kevin’s genius (our threatened hero) though it was repeatedly referred to, nor did I find Jennifer’s (the lead FBI agent) closing responses believable.THR3E will definitely have you looking at the world through a different set of lenses for days to come after you finish reading it.Reviewed at quiverfullfamily.com
    • 5/5
      Thr3e was the first Dekker book I read. Afterward, I was completely hooked on his books to the point of obsession. The book had me feverishly turning pages as the pace was fast and intense. It is a race against time as Kevin's horrific past is unleashed by a psychotic killer. Kevin must race to stop numerous bombs all the while trying to hunt down this killer from his past. The book had me hooked and guessing until the very last page! Excellent read!
    • 3/5
      This is a top notch thriller that had me absorbed in the story from page one. Dekker is great at heightening the suspense and really keeps the reader guessing. During the time I was reading this, I felt some of the scenes were a little long, especially at the end when two of the characters are debating the evil nature of man. Afterward, I read somewhere that this novel is considered Christian fiction (shocker) and then the debate made sense. Though it was still a tad too long, especially that late in the book, when you just want to know who the killer is.
    • 5/5
      This book was excellent!!! I cant believe the twist, TED DEKKER is deffinetly my new fav author ! Looking forward to reading more. This was my fouth book reading of his, and I really think hes awesome!