Quick Summary: A guilty pleasure, yes, but what a pleasure! Fun plot, likeable characters, amazing production values and shockingly good voice acting.

Title: Star Wars: Scoundrels (Audio Version)

Author: Zahn, Timothy

Read by: Marc Thompson

Imprint: Random House Audio

Date of Publication: 2013

When I know that there's a long drive in my near future, I always like to pick up an audio book. Usually, an audio book is only a diversion, but Star Wars: Scoundrels was nothing less than a delight, due to the high quality of the audio production.

Scoundrels is set between Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, but you don't actually have to be familiar with Star Wars to enjoy the book. Despite the space opera setting, Scoundrels is very much a classic heist story, owing as much to Ocean's 11 as to any science fiction predecessor.

Lovable rogue Han Solo has a problem – he owes thousands of credits to crime lord Jabba the Hutt. Han's a smuggler, not a thief, but Jabba's put a bounty on his head. When a stranger asks Han to help him recover 63 million credits from a rival crime syndicate, Black Sun, Han feels he has to agree. Together with his best friend Chewbacca, Han pulls together a team of eleven colourful underworld personalities – including Han's sometime friend and occasional enemy, Lando Calrissian. Their plan? To take advantage of the planet Wukkar's major annual festival to infiltrate the palatial home of Black Sun underboss Avrack Villachor. The problem? Villachor's a very suspicious man – and then there are all those Imperials wandering around . . .

I enjoyed this book thoroughly, but more for the quality of the audio production than for anything else. Marc Thompson's voice acting skill s are extraordinary. He voices at least 20 separate characters, using at least 4 separate accents, with such skill that the listener is never confused as to who is speaking. When reading narration, Thompson is so deliciously melodramatic that every word becomes an over-the-top delight. Add in plenty of sound effects – crickets, star-destroyer engines, blaster bolts – and Star Wars' original John Williams score, and the entire production becomes a real treat. This audio book is an outstanding example off what audio drama can be at its best.

My first impression of the writing was that it was less impressive than the voice acting. The words got the story across, but I wasn't noticing any phrases that really sang. But, as I continued to listen, the writing grew on me. I began to realise that as an author, Timothy Zahn has one really extraordinary skill. He has the gift of making you care about his villains, to make you love people who should, by all rights, be unlikable. By the end of the story, I really genuinely liked Villachor and his security chief Shequoa. I liked almost all the 'bad' guys. In fact, my favourite character in the whole story was a young agent in the employ of Imperial Intelligence. Imperial Intelligence answers to Darth Vader, the big bad of the Star Wars universe, but this agent was intelligent, amusing, and working very hard to keep the ordinary citizens of Wukkar safe in a dangerous time.

One thing to be aware of is that this is not a typical Star Wars story. Although Luke, Obi Wan, and Leia are referred to, there are no Jedi knights in the actual story. The only light sabre to make an appearance is so badly damaged that 'light letter opener' might be a better term. This is a story about the ordinary people of the Star Wars universe, not the gifted few. It is, however, full of references to the Star Wars movies and expanded universe novels, which should be a treat for fans. There is even a scene that imitates the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" movie poster – a character played by Harrison Ford, standing in front of a rolling sphere of rock, cracking a whip – and it is totally justified in the context of the story.

Even if you are not a Star Wars fan, I think there is something in this audio book that you will enjoy. Highly recommended.