The Hanging Tree Audiobook By Mark Dawson cover art

The Hanging Tree

John Milton, Book 25

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The Hanging Tree

By: Mark Dawson
Narrated by: David Thorpe
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Deep in the Kentucky hills, justice is still dealt from the end of a rope.

When John Milton stumbles into a small town plagued by scams, secrets, and a brutal criminal family, he plans to keep his head down. But after a deadly ambush leaves him tied up and dragged into the Appalachians, Milton finds himself face-to-face with an ancient tree—and a noose meant for his neck.

As he fights to survive, Milton uncovers a sprawling conspiracy: a crooked banker, a string of ruined lives, and a drug operation hiding in plain sight. With time running out and bodies piling up, Milton must bring the whole operation crashing down.

The Hanging Tree is a relentless, edge-of-your-seat thriller packed with action, vivid characters, and the cold steel of frontier justice.

©2025 Unputdownable Limited (P)2026 Tantor Media Action & Adventure Crime Thrillers Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Thriller & Suspense

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Clearwater By: Mark Dawson
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I love John Milton, warts and all. The only hiccup with this book is the insane Kentucky accents. I laughed out loud on a few of the klinkers...."Now git!!"...really?

One of the better installments...but...

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This book was tamer than its predecessors. John is trying to be "normal" as much as circumstances allow. I love this series. I recommend starting with first book because at this point you will feel like John is a friend you could count on.

Hanging Tree

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4.5 Stars ⭐️

The fact that this is the 25th book in this series, and that I have read every single book says something. It means that I am a HUGE fan of this author and particularly of this series. Mr. Dawson has several series in progress at the moment, and I enjoy every one of them, but I have to say that John Milton is my favorite.

We have been along for the ride as John Milton has battled his many demons - rooting for him as he somehow seems to find trouble no matter what he does. Now though, his goal is to try to make amends where possible, to try to make up for the actions earlier in his life when he worked for Group 15. His ability to plant himself exactly in the middle of the worst possible situations is almost an art.

In this book John decides that he is going to buy a food truck, and he plans a cross-country trip in this new truck, selling his world famous "Yorkshire Burritos". He plans on stopping at various State Fairs from the East coast to the West coast. Unfortunately, he only makes it to his first stop before he finds himself smack dab in the middle of another crazy situation.

There is a bad guy who is a despicable blackmailer. He runs extensive long terms scams where he gains information and then uses the information to extort money from his marks until they are rung dry. His operation is very organized, using professional ex-military guys as the enforcers when people need a push.

John gets involved when the president of the local Kentucky bank is the one being blackmailed and the bank is in danger of going under - putting the life savings of many of the town's retirees in danger.

The book is narrated by David Thorpe who I'm pretty sure has been the voice of this entire series. I usually LOVE the way he portrays the characters, especially John Milton, probably because of his English accent. I've said many, many times that as an American, I love any time there is any type of European accent. Unfortunately, it pains me to say, I could not stand the narration of most of this book.

John is in America, in a small town in Kentucky and I'm not sure if Mr. Thorpe felt he had to do some kind of southern accent, or......actually I have no idea what it was supposed to be. It was awful. Seriously awful. And every single character in this town was narrated with some form of this accent. For the first time I can finally understand when people say that an attempted Scottish or specific English accent is all wrong when I cannot tell the difference. Maybe it was like that. All I can say was that it was so bad that it completely took me out of the story. I have reviewed all of the books that he has narrated, and I have never felt anything close to this - he normally does a fantastic job.

Maybe it's just me. I don't know because there aren't any reviews on Audible yet. Thankfully, I know that this is probably just a one off and the next book is going to go back to being wonderful.

What was that accent supposed to be?

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John Milton. One of my favorite characters. Always finds himself in and out of trouble. looking forward to his next adventure.

Always exciting !

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Same old, same old - chasing bad guys in the U.S. - and far from the latest trend of Milton and Ziggy Pen's espionage tales and their taking out other various international bad guys from around the globe. But if you can handle that and can't resist once again listening to David Thorpe perform his astonishingly great voice performances, by all means give it a go. We're heading back to re-listening to the greats of old.

This is Milton 10 years ago

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