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Title: Precious Thing

Author: Colette McBeth

Narrator: Penelope Rawlins

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-04-14

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 137 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

I know her inside out. I know what shes thinking, I know what she wants. So I cant give up on her, she knows I never will. Some friendships fizzle out. Rachel and Clara promised theirs would last forever. They met in high school when Rachel was the shy, awkward new girl and Clara was the friend everyone wanted. Instantly, they fell under each others spell, and nothing would be the same again. Now they are in their late twenties, and Rachel has the television career, the apartment, and the boyfriend, while Claras life is spiraling out of control. Despite everything, they remain inextricably bound. Then Rachels news editor assigns her to cover a police press conference, and she is shocked when she arrives to learn that the subject is Clara, who has been reported missing. Is it an abduction, a suicide, or something else altogether? Imagine discovering something about your oldest friend that forces you to question everything youve shared together. The truth is always there. But only if you choose to see it. In Colette McBeths mesmerizing debut, the story of a friendship and a missing person investigation are expertly wound tighter and tighter from the opening lines until the final, stunning conclusion.

Members Reviews:

BEST of my 2015 list !!

This was such a fantastically different novel, in so many ways !! Made better only by the incredible narration. I am looking forward to more from Colette McBeth, and Penelope Rawlins (together or separately) . Outstanding really... shot right to the top of my list of favorite audio books ever.

I loved it!

Any additional comments?

I loved this book. It was so interesting and well written. I found myself needing to listen and finish it, which doesn't happen often. the character development was on point. Great ending!

A mess

What a ridiculous mess of a book. Very hard to finish. Convoluted, boring, poorly planned. Not much happens. Mostly we're in the head of the narrator, who goes on and on with nothing interesting at all.

A mystery down to the last minute.

Performance was great! Kept me wanting to hear more. I definitely recommend this audio book.

Worth the Wait

Slow to start but excellent plot line develops and keeps you riveted until the end

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Title: The Player

Subtitle: A Carter Ross Mystery, Book 5

Author: Brad Parks

Narrator: Adam Verner

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-04-14

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 44 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

When he hears residents of a Newark neighborhood are getting sick - and even dying - from a strange disease, investigative reporter Carter Ross dives into the story - so deep he comes down with the illness himself. With even more motivation to track down the source of the disease, Carter soon hits upon a nearby construction site.

But when the project's developer is found dead, and his mob ties surface, Carter knows he's looking at a story much bigger - and with even more dangerous consequences - than an environmental hazard. Back in the newsroom, Carter has his hands full with his current girlfriend and with the paper's newest eager intern, not to mention his boss and former girlfriend Tina Thompson, who has some news for Carter that's about to make tangling with the mob seem simple by comparison.

Members Reviews:

Love this Character!

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Yes, I enjoy the Carter Ross stories, I have listened to them all and sadly will miss them I await the next story. I hope Mr. Parks is writing as I type this.

Who was your favorite character and why?

No specific character stood out.

Just Okay

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Although I felt that it wasn't up to par with Parks' previous books, I would recommend that Carter Ross fans listen to The Player. It started out with a good story line and then abruptly dropped it for another. I wish he would have woven the two together throughout the book. I listened to the entire book because I really like the Carter Ross character. Worth a listen, especially if you have read his other books. The characters develop and new things are always happening among them.

Would you be willing to try another book from Brad Parks? Why or why not?

Of course! I love the Carter Ross character. And want to hear how he and Tina's relationship evolves.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No

Any additional comments?

Looking forward to Parks' next Carter Ross adventure.

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Title: Double, Double

Subtitle: A New Novel of Wrightsville

Author: Ellery Queen

Narrator: Mark Peckham

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-14-14

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 15 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Ellery Queen returned to Wrightsville to solve the mystery of a rich man - believed poor - who died of "old age," a poor man - believed rich - who committed suicide, and a scholarly drunk who disappeared. Shortly it occurred to Queen that the puzzle had a pattern. A twisted mind was committing murder according to an old nursery rhyme! Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chiefand to at least one person in town, the chief was Ellery Queen.

Members Reviews:

'Double' -- A Surprising Delight

Didn't expect 'Double Double' to be excellent. Certainly didn't expect 'Double Double' to be anything extraordinary. I was DOUBLY wrong. A wonderful mystery.

Wonderful Period Crime Writing

Ellery Queen is an old school sleuth with shades of Sherlock Holmes & Lord Peter Whimsey. Excellent in every way possible

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Title: Emily Dickinson Is Dead

Subtitle: A Homer Kelly Mystery, Book 5

Author: Jane Langton

Narrator: Derek Perkins

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-05-13

Publisher: HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 13 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Although she spent her life withdrawn from the people of Amherst, Massachusetts, every man, woman, and English professor in this small university town claims ownership of poet Emily Dickinson. They give tours in her house, lay flowers on her grave, and now, as the hundredth anniversary of her death approaches, they organize festivals in her name. Dickinson scholar Owen Kraznik has just been railroaded into organizing the event when Amherst starts to burn.

When fire consumes a fourteen-story university dormitory killing two students, transcendentalist scholar and occasional sleuth Homer Kelly considers that it may have been set on purpose. To his amazement he finds himself once again embroiled in what Dickinson called "death's tremendous nearness" as murder stalks the symposium.

Critic Reviews:

"[Langton writes with] ebullience and good humor and a sort of picnic charm of abandon and play." (Eudora Welty)

"Langton's sparkling prose and inimitable wit offer a delectable feast for the discriminating reader." (Publishers Weekly)

"Like Jane Austen and Barbara Pym, Langton is blessed with the comic spirit - a rare gift of genius to be cherished." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Contact me for any questions: [email protected]

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Title: Quarry's List

Subtitle: A Quarry Novel

Author: Max Allan Collins

Narrator: Christopher Kipiniak

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 1 min

Language: English

Release date: 10-29-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 30 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Killer-for-hire Quarry is trying to lie low when he gets a midnight visit from two gunmen sent by an old associate. Someone wants Quarry off the scene - for keeps. This early crime novel by the author of The Road to Perdition shows once again that nobody is harder-boiled than Quarry. With a new afterword by the author.

Critic Reviews:

"Collins never misses a beat." (Booklist)

Members Reviews:

a Great Quick Read

As detailed in the First Quarry, Quarry is a former Vietnam veteran whose real name is never disclosed to the reader. He comes back, finds his fiancé, Joanie, in bed with another guy, finds that guy working under his car and kicks the jack out, survives a murder trial, and is then recruited by a mysterious figure named the Broker to carry out hits and we don't mean hits in baseball.

Quarry's List is the second book in the series, was first published in 1976, and details Quarry's adventures in the immediate aftermath of the Broker's death. Quarry has been laying low in his cottage for months, believing that someone will be sent to kill him, tying up loose ends. Quarry has been expecting a two-man team and, although he has a two-bedroom cottage, he sleeps in the fold-out couch in the loft, believing that it will get him better odds.

After dealing with the assassination attempt, Quarry follows his leads to whoever is appearing to take over the Broker's business in Miluakee, believing that this is the person who ordered the hit on him. He sees that there is a two-man team watching a brick house.

Quarry stays at the Concort Inn, a place where he used to meet the Broker. He liked to swim there. "Maybe I was an idiot," he explains, "coming back here, staying here again. Maybe I was just risking my ass, just so I could go swimming." Of course, it wouldn't be a Quarry book without a romantic interest and, as Quarry takes his swim, he hears a voice from behind him, "feminine, soft, so soft it didn't even echo in a room that threw sound around so thoroughly the barest ripple of the pool caused a tremor." She was a "good-looking woman of maybe twenty-eight, with white blond hair that hung to her shoulders and the sort of face you see on the covers of classy fashion magazines." Is this a coincidence or was she sent there to lure Quarry into a trap?

The book reads quickly and perhaps too quickly as Quarry maneuvers between the Broker's replacement and the blonde (whoever she is) and tries to figure out how he will get out of this situation alive. There are great fight scenes throughout the book as Quarry deals with those who are planning to put a hit on him. In the end, the title makes sense, too.

Like all Quarry books, it is a great read. Collins has a great ironic tone to the narrator's voice and it is not hard to accept that he is a hit man, perhaps one with certain morals and qualms.

Highly recommended.

Excellent novel

If you love pulp fiction this is the novel for you. Once again Quarry amazes you in his role as the leading man. The way Max developed this character, you would never believe the traits Quarry is exhibiting in this installment of the series. I don't want to give away the plot or the story line, you will just have to read the book yourself; however, I promise you won't be disappointed and it will keep you on the edge of your seat.

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Title: The Litter of the Law

Author: Rita Mae Brown

Narrator: Kate Forbes

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-22-13

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 70 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Autumn has descended and crops are being harvested all over Crozet, Virginia, ideal conditions for a scenic drive for Harry and husband Fair. Bucolic views are all well and good, but Harry's nose for trouble leads her straight to a cornfield's macabre scarecrow - an all too real murder victim that frightens all but the noisy crows.

This accountant's gruesome death is only the first of many disturbing events in this normally pastoral corner of the world. While Harry tends her beloved grapes and sunflowers, a killer edges closer - as does Harry's protective menagerie of animals.

Members Reviews:

Mrs. Murphy is on the hunt

This is a series I thought had finished and was surprised to find it is still on going. Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown write about murder in their small town of Crozet, Virginia.

Our protagonists are Mary Minor Harristeen Harry and tiger striped cat Mrs. Murphy. Harry had acquired a fat lazy gray cat called Pewter in earlier episodes. The Corgi Dog Tucker has to put up with the cats, it is his nose that follows the evil doers. In the earlier episodes, Harry was the postmistress but now she is married to equine vet Fair Harristeen. As this book opens they are all out for a Sunday drive in the country when they discover a scarecrow in a field is actually a dead man. This sets them off to solve the crime.

Brown nicely worked into the story information about the local Monacan Native American Tribe and its problems. I found the information about this indigenous tribe most interesting. I was unaware of all the problems Native American Tribes have to go through to be recognized by the federal or state governments. I enjoy the glimpse Brown provides of the daily life in Crozet. It is my opinion that the quality of Browns writing has declined from the earlier books in the series. But it was nice to meet up again with Mrs. Murphy, Pewter and Tucker.

The book is about seven hours long. Kate Forbes does a good job narrating the book. Forbes is an actress and audiobook narrator.

This was painful

I've loved the Mrs. Murphy series for a long time, but even my long attachment couldn't disguise how bad this book is. It was more of a manifesto than a murder mystery. By the time I turned it off (I couldn't finish it) I had forgotten who was murdered because it became such an afterthought in the story. The last few books have been leaning this way and it's such a disappointing end to what started as a cute whodunit series.

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Title: Ask Not

Author: Max Allan Collins

Narrator: Dan John Miller

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-22-13

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 22 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

New York Times best-selling author Max Allan Collins has won multiple Shamus Awards for his detective novels featuring Nathan Heller. The third book in his JFK trilogy, Ask Not finds Heller investigating a bizarre string of deaths among the witnesses to JFKs assassinationand tracing blame to LBJs right-hand man.

Members Reviews:

Outstanding!

Fantastic story, superb research, sensational writing... outstanding! This is yet another exceptional work by Max Allan Collins, and worth buying, reading and listening too.

To add to this fantastic work, Dan John Miller is once again an awesome narrator. Check it out!

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Title: Treasure Hunt

Subtitle: The Inspector Montalbano Mystery

Author: Andrea Camilleri

Narrator: Grover Gardner

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-24-13

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 51 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Interest in Andrea Camilleri's taciturn but epicurean inspector is at an all-time high. And with three of the last five novels in the series, including the award-winning The Potter's Field, hitting the New York Times bestseller list, this latest installment is certain to up the ante and win over a multitude of new fans.

In Treasure Hunt, Inspector Montalbano is hailed as a hero after news cameras film him scaling abuilding, gun in hand, to capture a pair of unlikely snipers. Shortly thereafter the inspector begins to receive cryptic messages in verse from someone challenging him to a treasure hunt. Intrigued, he accepts, treating the messages as amusing riddles - until they take a dangerous turn.

Members Reviews:

A Great Series with a Great Reader

Any additional comments?

Grover Gardner does not simply READ Andrea Camilleri's "Inspector Montalbano" books---he PERFORMS them. Camilleri's wry dialogue and Gardner's spot-on narration makes this series a joy to listen to. Camilleri is a great storyteller. The dialogue and banter between the rather dyspeptic Inspector Montalbani and his colleagues is always entertaining. Likewise, Camilleri's often caustic observations about life in Italy (and Sicily, in particular) are fun to listen to. The mysteries in the Montalbano books are often rather convoluted and require some suspension of disbelief---but, again, they are generally quite enjoyable. And Camilleri's wit is quite impressive. (The books are also wonderfully translated from the original Italian.)

One caveat about "Treasure Hunt": For a book that starts off with a great deal of wry comic situations, the book takes an extremely dark turn at the end. The book starts off in very much a comic "Thin Man" vein, and suddenly becomes "Silence of the Lambs" at the end. It is a strange, incongruous mix. The resolution of the "treasure hunt" of the title is quite dark. And although I am generally willing to allow Camilleri to stretch credulity for the sake of a good story, the conclusion was a bit hard to take.

My reservations aside, it is still an entertaining story. And few audiobook narrators are as enjoyable to listen to as Grover Gardner.

Performance outstanding but story - not so much.

Any additional comments?

I have listened to all of Andrea Camilleri books and, as usual, Grover Gardner is amazing.

Unfortunately for this book what begins as a simple but interesting mystery ends as a horror story. It was just too dark. The writing is as good as always but with each word I was more uncomfortable. And by the end the police were not the only ones nauseated.

In the past I have read Montalbano books before going to sleep each night but will not do so in the future.

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Title: Cook the Books

Subtitle: A Gourmet Girl Mystery, Book 5

Author: Jessica Park, Susan Conant

Narrator: Kim McKean

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-10-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 11 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Still smarting over the break-up with her boyfriend, Josh, Chloe Carter takes a job as a cookbook writer's assistant - a job that puts her in contact with Josh's chef friend, Digger. But when Digger dies in a supposed grease fire, Chloe starts mixing ingredients to find out how he really died - and who killed him.

Editorial Reviews:

When grad student and self-described foodie Chloe accepts a position as a cookbook writer's assistant, the last thing she expects is to become involved in a murder investigation that will force her to reconnect with Josh, the ex-boyfriend who callously spurned her for a job in Hawaii. But that's exactly what happens in Jessica Park and Susan Conant's delightful and intriguing mystery steeped in the Boston culinary scene and skillfully performed by Kim McKean, whose pleasant and measured delivery make for an absorbing listen.

Members Reviews:

It was ok

It was ok. I felt like it was rushed. Everything was resolved. Everyone is happy.

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Title: Bitter River

Subtitle: A Bell Elkins Novel, Book 2

Author: Julia Keller

Narrator: Shannon McManus

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-03-13

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 67 votes

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective

Publisher's Summary:

Phone calls before dawn are never good news. And when you're the county's prosecuting attorney, calls from the sheriff are rarely good news, either. So when Bell Elkins picks up the phone, she already knows she won't like what she's about to hear, but she's still not prepared for this: sixteen-year-old Lucinda Trimble's body has been found at the bottom of Bitter River. And Lucinda didn't drown - she was dead before her body ever hit the water. With a case like that, Bell knows the coming weeks are going to be tough. But that's not all Bell is coping with these days. Her daughter is now living with Bell's ex-husband, hours away. Sheriff Nick Fogelsong, one of Bell's closest friends, is behaving oddly. Furthermore, a face from her past has resurfaced for reasons Bell can't quite figure. Searching for the truth, both behind Lucinda's murder and behind her own complicated relationships, will lead Bell down a path that might put her very life at risk.

In Bitter River, Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Keller once again weaves a compelling, haunting mystery set against the stark beauty and extreme poverty of a small West Virginia mountain town.

Critic Reviews:

"Julia Keller is that rare talent who combines gripping suspense, a fabulous sense of place, and nuanced characters you can't wait to come back to." (Karin Slaughter)

Members Reviews:

Liked the writing but not the story

I like the characters and place in this series, but I didn't like the spy / terrorist subtext in this story.

Gripping Suspense

This is book two in the Bell Elkins series. Bell is a West Virginia prosecutor for Raythune County who lives in Ackers Gap. Sheriff Nick Fogelsong called to report the murder of 16 year old Lucinda Trimble whose body was found in a car in the Bitter River. Ikes diner is blown up and a sniper shoots at Bell at the Courthouse, so the fun begins.

The book is well written, the plot is interesting with lots of twists and turns and lots of suspense. Keller provides lots of background material about West Virginia, its people and poverty. In fact, I think there is too much detail; some could be cut out to make the story tighter.

Keller is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. Shannon McManus does a good job narrating the book.