This was my first Candice Fox and it won't be my last. This was thrilling from the first page to the last but had ups and downs without losing pace. I grew up a couple hours from Vegas and have played bingo or gone to the seafood buffet in Mesquite more times than I can count. Never did I picture it as a setting for a prison break narrative. The book explored themes like abuse, trauma, incarceration, guilt, and motive throughout without feeling overhanded. The end wrapped up a little cushy for me, but not enough to lose a star.

As always, the NetGalley app sucks. Distortion between the two narrators was markedly noticeable over 1x speed. Both were cast well and did justice to the character.

Wow!!! This book starts off with a bang and just keeps bringing the unexpected until the end!

This is a book that you have to peel back like an onion. There are so many layers, side stories, and characters and I enjoyed uncovering all of it. I am a true crime lover and I felt like I got to be on the case trying to piece all the information together. I also enjoyed the multiple POV’s in this book. We follow Celine (death row supervisor) and John Cradle (death row inmate) on a crazy ride that I didn’t see coming!

If you like police procedure/thriller books then definitely grab this one!! And if you are into audiobooks this is a good one to listen to! The narrators were great!

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for a audio ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is my first book by Candice Fox and I really enjoyed it. It was fast paced with great character building. The story definitely took some unexpected Twists and turns and I was fascinated by the multiple plot lines. I will definitely be looking for more books by this author and the narrator she used did a fantastic job bringing the story to life.

Immediately, I was thrown into this fast-paced story and swept up in the intensity of it. Right off, we're introduced to prison guard's families who are then taken hostage by someone requesting all 600 inmates be released.

I love a book that sucks me in so fast! We hear multiple POV from guards and inmates in the past but also the present. The story builds intensity when we learn their backstories and the crimes of the inmates. We also see each step of the investigation and hunt for escaped prisoners.

It was a wild ride! By the end I was questioning everyone's loyalty and was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happened. Toward the conclusion, the pace slowed just slightly, which I wasn't expecting, but it didn't take away from the story. I highly recommend this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for an honest review. The book releases March 30, 2022.

I really liked the beginning of this- it was exciting, but I didn't understand some of the plot lines. Why did they let all the prisoners out? They weren't really given an ultimatum. Unless I missed something- but I rewinded and listened to that part twice. Then things got exciting as prisoners escaped. But then I became lost again. I think things happened too quickly and it didn't translate well to audio for me and I lost what was happening.

I am a huge Candice Fox fan so I was THRILLED to have a chance to get this book before it was released (thanks NetGallery) in return for an honest review.
Narration was spot on, it didn't distract from the story, it complimented it. Story, exciting, enjoyable and captivating, Ms. Fox's characters grow and develop as the story progresses - she adds depth and brilliance, similar as to how a beautiful painting blooms at the hands of a talented artist. Only reason for knocking of a star (hated to do it, would rather have the option of deducting half a star) was that the story was rich enough without the addition of a subplot added at the end that I didn't really comprehend -race war perhaps? Essentially, EASILY worth any mystery readers time! Judged against today's standard fare instead of the author's novels (and what I know she is capable of) tempted to ignore confusing subplot (added late in the game) to give her 5 stars. If you're new to this author, this would be a solid introduction to her skills...

All I can say is WOW! I enjoyed this in audio and it was a long one but I could not stop it and LOVED it. I can definitely see this one being developed into a television series in the future. Imagine an entire prison being emptied of the inmates. That is what happens, all 600 of them. They are now loose in Nevada. This story is a multi-layered study of characters from Celine, the death-row supervisor, to John Kradel, the death-row inmate who insists he is innocent and sets off to prove it. It also leads us through the lives of other inmates and their crimes and capture. Definitely a recommendation from me.

**Received this ARC for review in audio from the publisher via NetGalley**

The Chase was a wild ride! I must say it was one of my favorite books of the year! I’ve already told everyone I know to add it to their wishlist.

The ONLY downside was the two lead female characters. One was just too aggressive towards the other (in a mean way, not a powerful way). The other was just “unlikable” for reasons I honestly can’t pinpoint. With that said… not liking them was part of the charm of the novel and my statement in NO WAY should discourage anyone from this book

The narrators did an amazing job of bringing everyone to life!

I just reviewed The Chase by Candice Fox. #NetGalley Action packed from the start! Love the authors work. I look forward to more of Candice's work

Thanks for the opportunity to listen. I really liked the male voice for the reading sometimes the female voice sounded too stilted.I like that he gave John my southern accent it seem to ring true. The female voice was fine except when it was an narrator and not first person.

Reading the synopsis of this book really caught my attention. It seem like a very original idea to have mini prisoners loose and I was interested how that would play out in the book. It started with all the jail wardens’ families coming to the prison to watch a ballgame against minimum security prisoners and jailers. After one death and 600+ released prisoners the story about families was dropped. I would of liked to read more about their rescue.
The story continues as a chase to round them up. The story concentrates on 3 escapees and the female captain of death row. Several other characters play Important parts in the story. John; one of the escapees, needs to prove his innocence in the crime for which he has spent five years serving time .
I enjoyed the fast pace’ the banter between Celine and John. John’s character was well written. I loved the little touches of adding pets to the story . I was finding myself listening as much as possible !

I did not like the amount of violence in the book. I know it is to be expected in an action story about prisoners, but for me it was too much. I found myself hating Trinity’s character. She was too abusive to Celine and came off as an egotist. There was too many minor characters for me to keep straight. I forgot how some were connected.
I also am not sure the ending made sense to me. Just my opinion.

I was blown away by this book because it has so many different angles. The main premise has to do with the attempts to re-capture all the inmates that escaped from a prison. But there are lots of other things involved--a death row guard captain with a past that clouds her view of her charges, an egotistic federal marshal, a death row inmate who was wrongly convicted. And, a white supremacist who has set this all in motion. We get a closeup look at what makes a person follow such a leader (and it's frightening in today's America). So, lots of suspense and drama, but also some levity in the interaction between a guard and her prisoner. This multi-faceted story grabbed my attention and left me wanting even more--what will happen after this? I see a sequel in the future (or at least hope there will be one.) One of the best books I've listened to this year!

Six hundred inmates flood out of Pronghorn Correctional Facility into the desert and the biggest manhunt in US history begins. One of those inmates needs to use his freedom to prove that he is not guilty of killing his wife and child.

Earlier this year, I read my first Candice Fox novel. Not only did I love the story but I met one of my favourite characters and Fox's entire backlist has been on my TBR ever since. I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to get my hands on this audio advanced reader copy.

At the beginning of this story, an anonymous caller demands that all of the inmates be released from prison or the families of the prison staff will be killed. As someone who is equally interested in and terrified by anything relating to prison, this premise sucked me right in!

The characters had depth and I had fun differentiating the "bad" ones from the "good" ones. This book was a tad long for my liking but the multiple POVs and subplots kept things interesting. Many of the chapters ended with mini cliffhangers which made this book unputdownable.

The story had a bit more violence than I was expecting. It didn't bother me but it may not be for everyone. It also had the humour that I fell in love with the last time that I read this author's work. (Cluck .... )

Thank you to @macmillan and @netgalley for a copy of this audio arc in exchange for my honest review. The Chase is available on March 8, 2022!

I discovered Candice Fox when I picked up Crimson Lake. I’m all caught up on that series so I was excited to see a new book by Fox. Unfortunately this one just didn’t work for me. I never connected with Celine and did not find her adversarial relationship with Kraddle credible. The big reveal of the real killer was odd and underwhelming and the ending was both tidy and open ended-it’s clearly the first in a new series. I did not care for the narration at all. Over exaggerated Southern accents were distracting and unnecessary. Disappointing, but not a dealbreaker with the author.

I enjoyed Candice Fox's Crimson Lake series and this story did not disappoint. It was a by the seat of your pants ride with lots of twists and turns.

Six hundred prisoners, including extremely dangerous death row inmates are released into the Nevada desert during a hostage event. Celine Osborne is the death row supervisor and while she had no part in releasing the prisoners, she is very involved in helping to hunt them down. Because of a horrific event from her past she is determined to personally find and return John Kradle – the man who killed his entire family. The Chase is The Fugitive on steroids. Many of the prisoners soon start seeking revenge for those who put them in prison in the first place. The big question is – are they all as bad as you would assume or could some of them be innocent or rehabilitated and be trusted to help? Celine Osborne is definitely not someone to be messed with but did the trauma in her past damage her ability to trust her instincts about people? Is she as tough as she comes across? Will she ever have a life outside of Pronghorn correctional institution? Will the mastermind of the breakout be caught before he is able to perpetrate another mass shooting? Lots of story lines, lots of questions, lots of characters, and lots of action make this one of Candace Fox’s best thrillers yet. The narration was brilliant and I couldn't stop listening!

This book was great! I absolutely loved the suspense and non-stop action! There are surprises and twists that I truly didn't see coming, and I loved that! The characters are unique and help drive the story forward. You get connected and you need to know what happens!

I would highly recommend this for readers that enjoy a mystery and tons of action!

I was provided a gifted copy of this book for free. I am leaving my review voluntarily.

“The Chase” by Candice Fox
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Netgalley Audiobook 🎧
Release Date: 03/08/2022

Thank you Netgalley for this Audio Arc! I loved it! I’ve read some of Candice Fox cowrites with James Patterson, but this was my first standalone by her! I listened to this in two days! It was full of action and suspense. It kept me on my toes for the entire book!

What would you do if you were told to release the 600 prisoners or else an entire bus full of the prison employees family was going to be blown up? Would you release them or risk it?

John Cradle was amongst the 600 prisoners released. His only goal is to prove his innocence. Five years ago he was found guilty of killing his wife and child, but he claims he didn’t do it. He will do anything to find out what happened to his family. He just has to stay in the shadows long enough to prove it.
Death Row Supervisor Celine Osborn is going to make it her mission to find these prisoners, but especially John. She doesn’t believe he’s innocent for one minute.
The manhunt is on!

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for sending me an ARC of The Chase in exchange for an honest review. A prison break. An innocent man given the chance to use the escape to finally prove that he did not commit the crime for which he was imprisoned, if he can avoid being recaptured. It’s the plot of the movie The Fugitive, so this absolutely could have been the set up for a great story. Unfortunately, this book has a lot of problems.

The first serious problem is that there aren’t any likeable characters in The Chase. I think this type of story only works if you’re rooting for the convict to prove his innocence, but it’s pretty hard to root for John Kradle. His personality is just grating, and he doesn’t even claim to be innocent until about halfway through the book. At the same time, his pursuer, Celine Osbourne, is even worse. Her hatred of Kradle is simply irrational for the first half of the book. When you finally learn her tragic backstory (which should have been introduced at the very beginning to better explain her character up front), her hatred is still irrational and unprofessional, but a tiny bit understandable, I guess. Finally, there’s the US Marshall, Trinity Parker, who is comically aggressive and disrespectful in her treatment of Celine. The dialogue between these three characters is just cringey. And outside of one inmate named Keeps, the remaining characters in the novel are pretty one-dimensional.

The second serious problem with The Chase is the plot. The prison break itself is solid. But it’s laughable that the guards, especially the Death Row Supervisor Celine, would be allowed to participate in the search for the escapees when there had to be inside help with the breakout. Then there’s Raymond “the Axe” Ackerman, a 77-year-old inmate who escapes along with the others and seems at first to be a bit of comic relief until you realize that—offscreen, sadly—he keeps killing everyone he meets. Mostly though, the problem is that the book splits its focus between at least three different stories. This could have been a good novel about a wrongly convicted man who uses a prison break to finally have his revenge on the ‘real killer,’ but you eventually learn there was so little to the original investigation that it boggles the mind that Kradle ever could have been convicted in the first place. This could have been a good novel about a prison guard finally coming to grips with the tragedy in her past, and reckoning with the realization that she cannot trust her own judgment about the people in her life. Or this could have been a good Black Sunday-style novel about a terrorist orchestrating a prison break so he can commit an even bigger atrocity. But in trying to tell all three of those stories and more, The Chase doesn’t do any of them well.

Finally, a word about the audiobook narration. There are two performers, one female and one male. I think that setup works if each performer is reading from a single character’s perspective, so that you begin to identify the voice with the character. Here it’s just the woman reading if the section is from a female character’s perspective, and the man reading if the section is from a male character’s perspective. But there are multiple male and female characters focused on throughout the novel, and both narrators have to do voices for characters of the other gender too, until the constantly changing narrator became a bit distracting. And I actively disliked the harsh, Southern accent used for John Kradle. It genuinely left me wondering if I would have drawn the same negative impression of his character if I didn’t hear the voice.

Ultimately, The Chase was a very disappointing read.

This was a fast paced thriller and perfect to listen to as an audiobook. The two narrators were terrific.

The Chase by Candice Fox. #NetGalley I received a free audiobook for a honest review.

This is not one to be missed! It is a fast paced thrill ride that keeps it coming. How could it not be when 600+ criminals are released into the world? What would it take for you to release prisoners? How many would you release? The ethical and moral dilemmas kept me thinking about it long after story ended.

Death row supervisor Celine is determined to get John Kradle back into custody. It because her personal mission to do so and she will stop at nothing to make it happen. John Kradle's mission during his escape is to prove he did not kill his wife and son which is how he got to Pronghorn Correctional Facility in the first place. It is a cat and mouse chase across the country and it will keep you guessing - is he really innocent? And why does Celine hate him so much?

As you would expect with a storyline like this, there is so much happening. Violent criminals have a taste of freedom, they will do whatever they want. Running amuck and causing chaos across the country. The race is on to get them all back, before they are all back to the crimes they they are locked up for. Does not disappoint!