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The Subway

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BECAUSE FOREVER IS A REALLY LONG TIME…

For the last six years, Tim Scarberry has called Portland, Oregon home. Placed there by the Witness Protection Program, he has assimilated into the existence set up for him, trying to gain some level of enjoyment from the life he never asked for and even less wanted.

An existence that is completely destroyed by a single phone call, nothing more than a message telling him that his last remaining tether to his old life has been severed in a most tragic and unexpected way.

Having no choice but to abandon his adopted life and return to his roots, Scarberry finds himself dropped into a situation far more harrowing than he ever could have imagined. Allied with a single sheriff’s deputy – a young woman he knew only briefly in his youth that is fighting battles of her own – the two face a network of illegal gun runners, apathetic bureaucracy, and federal agency, ultimately squaring off with the very thing Scarberry’s been trying to avoid for so long…

426 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 18, 2017

2171 people are currently reading
414 people want to read

About the author

Dustin Stevens

84 books313 followers
I originally hail from the midwest, growing up in the heart of farm country, and still consider it, along with West Tennessee, my co-home. Between the two, I have a firm belief that football is the greatest of all past-times, sweet tea is really the only acceptable beverage for any occasion, there is not an event on earth that either gym shorts or boots can't be worn to, and that Dairy Queen is the best restaurant on the planet. Further, southern accents are a highly likeable feature on most everybody, English bulldogs sit atop the critter hierarchy, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with a Saturday night spent catfishing at the lake.

Since leaving the midwest I've been to college in New England, grad school in the Rockies, and lived in over a dozen different cities ranging from DC to Honolulu along the way. Each and every one of these experiences has shaped who I am at this point, a fact I hope is expressed in my writing. I have developed enormous affinity for locales and people of every size and shape, and even if I never figure out a way to properly convey them on paper, I am very much grateful for their presence in my life.

To sum it up, I asked a very good friend recently how they would describe me for something like this. Their response: "Plagued by realism and trained by experiences/education to be a pessimist, you somehow remain above all else an active dreamer." While I can't say those are the exact words I would choose, I can't say they're wrong. I travel, live in different places, try new foods, meet all kinds of different people, and above all else stay curious to a fault.

Here's hoping it continues to provide us all with some pretty good stories...

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5 stars
662 (41%)
4 stars
569 (35%)
3 stars
263 (16%)
2 stars
79 (4%)
1 star
27 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
Profile Image for Tulay.
1,202 reviews2 followers
November 24, 2017
Another good thriller.

Read many books written by Dustin Stevens or under his pen name K. R. Kohler and liked them. Interesting plots and characters. Because his testimony put gun dealer in jail, Tim Scarberry leaves his loved uncle and goes under Witness Protection program. Many law enforcement officials and the ones that want to kill him is after him.
Profile Image for Foxy Vixen.
319 reviews11 followers
March 13, 2021
The Subway... is a Suspense Thriller... well of coarse it is with a title like that! Alll good thrillers either have a train (subway) or a woods in it! Well, all I have t say is.... don’t let the title fool you!

I got this book FREE from Amazon, and what a great Freebie it turned out to be. Although this book has 2 main female characters in it... this book is certainly a great read for men. With guns... blood...guts everywhere.. and a Dodge Charger... how could it not be.

This book takes place in Portland Oregon, the backwoods of Eastern Tennessee and ends up in the backwoods of Georgia.

Lots of action played out my great characters, the only thing that was missing was a good dog or horse! You will certainly love the last line of the book... I know I did. Almost makes you think.. there is going to be another book... and make this a series... but certainly not needed.

This is a BOTM ebook for March 2021 at Snag A Read For Free. Come give us a visit for more mystery/suspense/thrillers just like this one.

If you would like to read this book for FREE be sure to visit Kindle Book Lending.
Profile Image for Simone.
67 reviews32 followers
March 15, 2018
How would I describe The Subway in one sentence? People sweat a lot when it's hot outside. I get it, summer can be uncomfortably warm. But I don't need every character focusing on the weather, or how air conditioning can be a welcome respite from the heat. While common sense isn't all that common, most people will go into this book already familiar with these concepts. I certainly don't need a description of how sweat is dispersed on every piece of clothing people are wearing. This book also has quite a few grammatical errors that should have been caught before it was released. Overall? Meh. I set this novel aside just over a quarter of the way through, and have no interest in going any further.
Profile Image for Jim A.
1,267 reviews82 followers
January 24, 2020
Lots of action for readers who are action junkies (like me). Strong female character in the deputy sheriff, driven female character in the U.S. Marshal. Revenge filled character in male lead character and or course the weak ass minor players like the marshal's boss and the sheriff.

Unlike many of Dustin Stevens' thrillers, this is a stand alone, although it does leave the door open for a sequel.
Profile Image for Zoë.
96 reviews13 followers
January 9, 2025
I have never read so much about people’s sweat. Haha. This wasn’t bad but also was more like a fast paced action movie with little character development. Wasn’t my cup of tea but lots of people will like this.

A man is in witness protection but when a monthly call that has gone on for years doesn’t go as planned, his carefully protected life changes drastically.
85 reviews6 followers
December 11, 2020
well plotted, but the writing!

Often, I had to figure out what Dustin Stevens meant from what he'd written, which was different.

Most egregious malapropism: "feign" for "deign." Yes, it's a single-letter typo and insignificant by itself, but it wasn't alone, and there were too many similar inappropriate or downright wrong usages. Every time I started liking the plot and the dialog, I'd bang my readerly shins against one of these...things.

Verb tenses wandered as well.

A good copy editor could help with all this. At present, the number of errors I encountered not only spoiled my enjoyment of this book, they ensured that no further works of Mr. Stevens' will grace my Kindle.
1 review
March 10, 2018
Difficult read

I found this book very amateurish as a whole. An awful lot of grammar mistakes. Story line jumped all over the place. Every other paragraph was concerned with how hot it was outside, how the characters were sweating, it got to be ridiculous how much emphasis was placed on the weather. I have been reading kindle books for several years from various authors and this is the first time I have felt the need to speak out
Profile Image for Thomas.
276 reviews1 follower
June 29, 2019
A really good book that is almost ruined by a plethora of misspelled words, incomprehensible phrases and paragraphs and even pages that are repeated in the book. I would have given this book 5 stars if it had been written in English! Mr. Stevens needs to get a proofreader; or if he has one, he needs to get a new one!With all the grammatical errors in this book, four stars was really stretching it!
Profile Image for lisa crosby.
26 reviews
December 29, 2017
What's up?

Loved the action. Liked the way the story began. Had me hooked, didn't put it down. The reason for 4 stars instead of 5 is the females portrayed as.....can't think of exact word but definitely not as intelligent as the males. What's up? Will read more of your books.....
1 review
January 27, 2018
Copy editting

Interesting and active but in desperate need of a copy editor. Almost unreadable at times due to poor sentence fragments, incorrect use of words, poor choices of adjectives, and other similar issues.
Profile Image for Cindy.
115 reviews
March 11, 2018
Poor writing

This writer needs to go back to school and learn grammar. I cannot waste time reading the sequel. This is so poorly written that I wonder if an editor even looked at it. I do not recommend
Profile Image for Pat Grady.
54 reviews1 follower
March 21, 2018
Always worth reading...

An accomplished author, Stevens is never a bad bet, although I fear he's churning out so many books that the actual writing has suffered somewhat... Got to get a better proofreader at least...one who has strong vocabulary skills.
Profile Image for Jerry Walch.
669 reviews17 followers
March 22, 2022
At 420 pages, The Subway is a lengthy book that seems to be a great deal shorter because it is a page-turner that moves at neck-breaking speed.

Like every Dustin Stevens book that I have ever read, The Subway will keep you on the edge of your seat, turning the pages until you read the last word in the very last sentence. Unlike many writers that I have read over the years, writers that seem to have only one voice and use that same voice in every tale they tell, Dustin has as many varied voices as the varied tales he tells. That, alone, is a very special gift that makes every book that he writes.

Another of Steven’s traits is giving his books clever, unique titles. Calling this book The Subway was one of his more clever titles. The average reader will be almost halfway through the story before the meaning of the title is revealed to him or her. I picked up on it right away only because of my own work experience with the federal agencies involved. I asked a few of my friends what they thought the title referred to and they all thought the same thing, subways or subway trains. They were all wrong, of course.

There are many talented thriller writers, but what sets Dustin Stevens apart from all of them is his general erudition, which shines through. While many writers pepper their stories with plenty of gratuitous sex and violence to hold the readers’ attention and interest, Stevens doesn’t and doesn’t need to. A truly unique and refreshing approach.

The way The Subway ends will knock your socks off.
Profile Image for Kevin.
Author 22 books243 followers
November 19, 2022
This story is pretty simple. Tim has been in the witness protection program for six years after testifying against a mob boss. The mob kills Tim’s uncle, who was his surrogate father, in order to flush Tim out of hiding. Tim takes the bait, leaves the protection of his unhappy life inside WITSEC and seeks out revenge against the mobsters. That’s the first fifty pages. Two hundred grueling pages later, during which not much that is surprising happens, there is an exciting and bloody concluding confrontation, to a point. The ending does not satisfy enough to be worth the slog through the long, dull middle.

The author also tends to end many (many!) chapters on mini-cliff-hangers, where the characters learn some bit of vital information, or come to some important realization — but the reader doesn’t get to know what it was until later. I’m not a fan of that format. The book’s conclusion also is setup for a sequel rather than being a satisfying wrap, which is a bit annoying. The writing is good in places, but long on description, filled with too many copy editing errors, and ultimately could have been better.

Subway, by the way, refers to a witness in WITSEC who drops out of sight — into the subway — without knowledge or permission. The Marshall service has never lost a witness (they say), so the Marshalls come looking for Tim, but that thread of the story was really unnecessary and never amounts to anything.

The set-up is good, and if you love a story that keeps you hanging, even at the end, you may well enjoy this one.
Profile Image for Michael Slavin.
Author 8 books283 followers
December 14, 2020
Not that great.

A man in witness protection takes off without permission as he suspects the bad guys have killed his surrogate father.

Location: Tenessee, Portland, Atlanta, and Maine

What I liked:
-The female deputy-good character
-The idea of someone in Witness Protection taking off

What I didn't like:
-Predictable
-I never felt like I really knew the main character
-I thought the Marshall would have had more character development. She was not used well or developed, all she did was chase him, just missing, then walked in after the climax
-With no chapter headers and many characters, I was often lost for a while before I figured out who's POV it was.
-In line with the last comment, I also had trouble knowing the location

I looked up the author, he has written over 60 books, and generally, everyone loves him. I have read the Boatman by him and that review is here on Goodreads. But this one was not great.
46 reviews
December 9, 2017
Amazing

At the completion of this novel I believe I have read Everything Dustin Stevens has written. His thrillers are the type of books you read through in one sitting. You just can't stop, can't put them down. The Subway although a bit different from some of the others was just excellent. I've never before read the works of an author who so consistently put out super hits one after another. Even when he strayed from the thriller motif and wrote "Be my eyes" . Even if you only read thrillers, that one will take you to unexpected places and you wont regret taking the time to read it. I hope Mr. Stevens will write more like it. Now I have to wait to see what he writes next and I will be one of the first to read it. Promise.
122 reviews2 followers
January 25, 2018
One helleva ride!

Some people would do anything to avenge the death of a loved one, even if it means removing oneself from your " safe" government-appointed home (and life), knowing that you would, once again, have to face the evil that was responsible for disrupting your life in the first place.

Author Dustin Stevens ratchet-ups the suspense in this action-packed thriller, bringing us characters that we'll learn to love or (if not hate, then) to despise, depending upon which side you are rooting for!

Great dialogue, interesting story-line, and non-stop action, come together, nicely, the result being a book that is hard to put down and sure to satisfy, not only, current fans of this writer, but also, new, soon-to-be fans of this author.







Profile Image for Michele.
1,852 reviews63 followers
January 6, 2021
Tim Scarberry is in the witness protection program. He has been living a life not his own for a long time now. The only person he keeps in contact with his mentor, the man who took him in when his parents died--he is allowed one phone call a month to speak to him. Then suddenly no one answers the phone. Tim knows something is wrong----he takes off to find out.

He manages to get to Tennessee where his mentor lives--goes to his house and knows something is desperately wrong. He fears that the people who are after him have his uncle--Tim bumps into a friend from his high school days who is now working for the sheriffs dept.

This becomes pure action as the two try to find and apprehend the person who murdered his uncle!!

The suspense will keep you reading late into the night!
Profile Image for Bea.
177 reviews3 followers
April 1, 2018
Good Novel

I thought this was a good novel. I was initially taken aback by the introduction of so many characters at the start, but it eventually all came together.

I was quite surprised by the number of grammatical/spelling errors and occasionally had to re-read a sentence in order to have it make sense. I’m not used to errors like this in Mr. Stevens’ books and it’s one reason why this is not a higher rated review.

Nonetheless, the novel was engaging, suspenseful and the plot well done. I think the characters were well defined and stayed true to their roles. Nice action; interesting ending.
99 reviews
March 24, 2018
It's always hot/ vCard by by by by Hoyt by by by

It took awhile it the beginning to understand who the characters were, and how they related to each other. The book kept me interested, but I thought the gunfight scene near the end was much to long. I've Ben in gunfightss in Vietnam, and they were not long. I know that was war, and this was criminals, but still once you realized you were losing the. Tactical advantage you tried to find a way to disengage. These guys were crazy, but it was still too long for me.
460 reviews2 followers
December 4, 2019
Wait! What?

The thing that I like about Author Dustin Stevens writing is the tension and how it plays in all of the scenarios in the story. This book was no exception. I was on the edge of my seat from the beginning! The tension that hung thick over every facet of The Subway kept me in expectation of when the other shoe would drop, when would Tim get his long held revenge for what got him into WitSec and a new life he didn't want nor like. And the last line has me chomping at the bit waiting for the next episode.
33 reviews
December 17, 2020
An individual in the witness protection program needs to find who murdered a relative

Helps to understand the reasons for the witness protection program. However the main character needs to escape the program to find out what happened to a relative who no longer is answering his phone. The government agency is unhelpful so he must find out for himself. As an escapee raises many issues which he must overcome. As his investigation unfolds it becomes clear that persons from his past are responsible for the disappearance and the reason he was in the program in the first place.

Profile Image for Leisel.
750 reviews4 followers
April 3, 2018
Unexpected find.

Having found this title as a free ebook and needing a change in genres of books I usually read it was a great find. I thoroughly enjoyed the fast pace action and the usual good verses bad scenario and characters. I admit felt there were a few items not clearly wrapped up, until the last paragraph and hoping there will be more adventures with this character in the future.
127 reviews5 followers
December 30, 2017
You can not hide.

He was in the witness protection plan. Then he called his uncle only to get the recorded message. He knew something was wrong. He had to go back. She was a local cop. Just responding to another complaint. Then she saw the body. This was going to a different. They would soon be the targets.
Profile Image for Jane Razeghi.
75 reviews2 followers
January 13, 2018
An amazing story!

What a creative mind Stevens has! I’ve read several of his other books & so far I & am happy to report that he delivers a complicated plot that keeps me glued to the book. Thank you. I can’t wait to read another Stevens’ mystery/action creation. Keep writing.
Profile Image for Oma.
185 reviews6 followers
January 16, 2018
Pretty good!

Fast-paced plot with good and bad guys well developed. Surprisingly some of those bad guys were US Marshals and small town police.
It was hard to stop reading because I wanted to see if Tim and Lou win... now that it’s over I wish the author would hurry and write book two since he hinted at it in the end!
Profile Image for Midge Lang.
62 reviews
February 14, 2018
Another good Dustin Stevens book!

This was a little different than I expected but nevertheless good! I always like stories when they're set in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area because I'm so familiar with there, but that's no reason any body else would. We don't get to know much about real people in Witness Protection so it's fun to read about them.
1,538 reviews5 followers
December 16, 2020
Uphill climb

I struggled to get through some of the detailed sections, so I could enjoy the action. It took me a while to get the rythm of the book. It's a good story, with some good characters, just not a good flow of dialogue ( not my preference). I still feel like it's worth the time/ effort.
Profile Image for Martin Pingree.
1,013 reviews15 followers
December 18, 2020
A Witsec informant gets a message causing him to ditch the program and leave the area to find out what the message meant. His testimony had put one brother in jail and now the other brother was after him. Also after him of course were the US Marshalls. Along the the way he gets help from an unexpected source. The cast of characters is only the beginning. With non stop action/intrigue and only a story line that Dustin could give us, this book is an action junkies dream.
14 reviews
January 10, 2021
How hot is it!

Seems like the hot weather was mentioned at least once in almost every chapter sometimes two or three times that I started wondering when and how many times in the next chapter everyone is sweating again. This ruined the book for me. I finished the book but did not enjoy this book. Guess I was sweating to much.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews

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