The Cleaner
John Milton, Book 1
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The Cleaner
Narrated by:
David Thorpe
Buy Now for £12.99
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Narrated by:
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David Thorpe
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By:
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Mark Dawson
About this listen
John Milton is the man the government calls when they want a problem to go away... but what happens when he’s the one who needs to disappear?
After a botched job leaves a bloody trail, government assassin John Milton does the one thing he’s never done before: he hides.
Disappearing into London’s bustling East End and holing up in a vacant flat, Milton becomes involved with his neighbour Sharon and her troubled son Elijah, who are caught in an increasingly bloody turf war between two rival gangs.
Unable to ignore the threat, Milton sets about protecting mother and son, meeting violence with violence. But his involvement puts him in the sights of the government’s next best killer, and before long Milton is not just fighting to save a family and a home—he’s fighting to stay alive...
If you like Lee Child's Jack Reacher, Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp, and Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne, you'll love compulsively addictive John Milton series.
Listeners also enjoyed...
555gggggggggggggg
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I enjoyed the writing style and the story. I've bought the next one so I must've liked it. Except....
John Milton goes in to a sink estate to help a woman and her son. He leaves a few weeks later and NOTHING is better (except the boxing gym is in a better state of repair - maybe it should be called The Handyman).
Some bad guys are dead, some good guys are dead, the drug kingpin has been replaced by a total psycho and the mum and boy have lost everything. Umm.....hooray???
The Equaliser if I was doing it
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I'd put off starting this series because I knew I wouldn't be able to stop myself from binging the whole series. I was right!
Brilliant Writing, great narration
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Very well written, believable story line and good characters.
Superbly narrated bye talented Mr Thorpe!
Really good introduction to Milton
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This is the first book in the series and it introduces us to the character of John Milton, an operative of a government agency called Group Fifteen. However, he’s had enough of the killing. An operation at the beginning of the novel doesn’t go exactly to plan, and he leaves behind a witness, a 5 year old boy, unable to kill him. Throughout the novel, he also has flashbacks, although those stop abruptly for no reason. Milton realizes he’s had enough and tells his boss he quits; however, his boss informs him he can’t simply do that. And that’s where the book begins to fall apart.
There is one strand where Milton is, unbeknownst to him, being chased and targeted by #12 from Group Fifteen. The second strand sees him helping out a woman who tries to commit suicide by lying on the rails at a tube station. Milton saves her, takes her home and decides to help. And most of the action (and dialogue) is black gang members smoking or selling drugs, buying drugs, rolling joints, passing joints, sparking them up, taking tokes, snorting lines of cocaine, and smoking crack. There is a lot of smoking in this – joints, cigarettes and cigars. The author takes great delight in describing the inhalation of smoke. It’s like a fetish.
So, that’s one reason why I didn’t like the novel. The second is, I simply wasn’t interested in the topic. Black teenage gang members involved in robbery and selling drugs in Hackney holds no interest for me. And I certainly have no interest in a white author’s take on it all. Hats off to David Thorpe for being able to reproduce the way they speak. My dislike of the topic isn’t due to the fact that these teenagers are black. I would have no interest if it was white kids doing this. But their colour is connected to the way they speak. So that’s two strikes.
The story at the heart of the book is about Milton trying to help Sharon Warriner and her son Elijah, or Jahjah. Elijah is on the fringes of a gang, about to be sucked in, and Milton does all he can to stop this. Elijah initially distrusts Milton, sure he’s just after sex with his mum, like so many men before him (so it seems). Milton assures him that’s not the case he wants to help. But what happens? Of course Milton sleeps with her. Of course Elijah catches them the morning after. And of course this is going to create tension. And of course it’s going to send Elijah to the very heart of this book. There is not a scrap of originality in this book.
It seems this was Mark Dawson’s first novel, which explains a lot. I’ve since listened to other books by this author and enjoyed some of them immensely.
The end of the description on audible says, “If you like Lee Child's Jack Reacher, Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp, and Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne, you'll love the compulsively addictive John Milton series.” The only thing this book has in common with those is that it features a male protagonist.
Would I listen to another novel by Mark Dawson? I really don’t know. I’d need to read the 1- and 2-star reviews first.
Would I listen to another novel narrated by David Thorpe? Yes, he’s one of the best British audiobook narrators out there, alongside Robert Whitfield/Simon Vance.
A huge disappointment.
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