Long Mile Home

March 24, 2014
On one of the most picture perfect race days in recent memory, two homemade bombs rocked the finished line of the Boston Marathon and plunged New England's largest city into shock as local, state and federal law enforcement officers fanned out to track down Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Chechen immigrant brothers whose disillusionment with the U.S. allegedly led to one of the country's most deadly terrorist attacks. The account by two award-winning Boston Globe reporters mirrors newspaper's original coverage. They get inside the heads of dozens of the participants, including a doctor who ran the race and tended to bombing victims, a Boston police officer, a marathon official, one of the injured spectators, and intermingle those riveting tales with stories about the four people who died in the tragedy. As the manhunt unfolds, the tactical moves by local law enforcement officials and political leaders take center stage. With a tone that owes more to breathless storytelling than dispassionate newsgathering, the book sometimes skirts the edge of melodrama. But the authors succeed in communicating an authentic sense of the anxiety and claustrophobia that gripped the region and the resilience that emerged from the ordeal.

Written by two Boston Globe reporters, this audiobook is the first comprehensive account of the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15, 2001, the chaotic search for the Tsarnaev brothers, and the role that both city officials and ordinary citizens played in the story. Narrator Jim Frangione treats the story with the respect it deserves, and as the authors no doubt intended. It's journalistic reporting at its finest, and the authors maintain a breathless pace throughout. Frangione's deep, smooth voice is at once authoritative and reassuring, and his pacing and diction are excellent. However, his range is limited, which contributes to some lackluster passages. He does perk up in tune with the action, and, overall, the book is both timely and interesting. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine