Heat 2

Heat is not my own favorite Michael Mann film—I'll take The Insider or Thief—but thirty years after it pitted Pacino against DeNiro as mirror-image cop and robber, it might be his most beloved. A movie sequel is finally on the way, but Mann loves the story so much that a few years back he (with crime-novelist collaborator Gardiner) published this epic before-and-after tale, which had mostly slipped past my radar until I heard raves about the audiobook. And what a ride it is: Peter Giles reads Mann's staccato, operatic prose with a gravelly, borderline-campy intensity that makes you feel like you are listening to a nineteen-hour monster truck show promo. And I mean that in a good way. To use some favorite Mann adjectives, it's electric, it's lethal, it's jacked. —Tom
(Order the audiobook from our partners at Libro.fm)