Ted

First Novel??? Yoa! Reminds me of David Baldacci's first novel, "First Power" in the fit for each of this story's piece into a puzzle that squirms and spurts through your imagination. Michael Kramer's read is finer than a tycoon's diamond collection. Okay... let me find a nit to pic... thinking.... thinking... thinking... Nope... not a nit to this thing that will act like a vacuum on your time tugging it away from all sorts of alternatives. I'm thrilled that this is a series and I'm off to download... "Sleeping Dogs". I'm not hoping that Perry will top "Butcher's Boy", just take me along on another ride as intriguingly plotted, charactered, and revealed.

Lescroart is an intelligent and sensitive man, this book shows it. I'm thinking that others might become interested in his characters and life view. I didn't. It was well read, no problems there and I'll look for David Colacci in the future. I just found the plot and characters flat. And the ending was tortuously predictable. Sorry, just can't recommend Dead Irish.

This was my first Pearson. Can this guy be so clever in every book? I gotta' find out!

The winter nights are way dark and bitter in Norway, right? Is that why their interesting authors write way dark and cold stuff? Harry Hole's so damned flawed, so why do I like the guy? Even in sunny, hot, Australia, he finds the dark and chilling. Yet... Yet... I'm off to listen to The Leopard, Nesbo's next. Does that wrap it up for you?

Fitzgerald is too much greater than me to try to review him. Want to listen to what a great American novel is? Listen to Jake Gyllenhall read this. One of the greatest books in the American language. Did I write "Great" enough?

A tad predictable and a lot of the atmospherics are driven by dialogue. While Carnoy's ear for character voice is quite good, Bray was challenged by Sinatra. No he isn't awful and I'll listen to more work from both Carnoy and Bray... Still this time the duo didn't live up to their promise in Carnoy's earlier introduction to this ensemble cast in Knife Music. In this case Bray got the words... but lacked the music.

This is a wonderful interpretation of human nature first by David Carnoy, then the interpretation of his interpretation that Kristoffer Tabori executes intriguingly. Odd thing here though. Normally in cop/mystery novels the villains are more complex than the protagonists... Not so here and Carnoy's created at least two of the latter. Okay, I wish that the bad dudes/dudettes were more than brush-stroked in from a list of things-that-make-killers-do-what-they-do... BUT... BUT... this read totally works. The Doc and the Cop both rock... and the continuing epilogue-like endings add hot layers of memory for the listener.

A small warning though. Carnoy is NOT linear. He does not go chronologically at this story. Maybe that technique might work a tad better in print where the reader can drop back a couple of pages from time-to-time to stay oriented. Here you need to be alert as a reader and pay attention to the author's notations of time and date.

After a while I found the technique interesting-making, but I wish someone had warned me in advance... Hope this will help you as you listen. How much did I like it? I've already downloaded the next in Carnoy novel. That's how much :-)

Hey... this is a totally good listen. More a police procedural than a mystery, it's still fun to take a ride with Virgil Flowers around the cold-weather cults. But to both get the nuances re. Flowers' character and to not ruin (there are spoiler alerts throughout this book) earlier Flower novels that are GREAT listens... Enjoy this Sanford novel AFTER the others in the series. Eric Conger is so comfortable that I've come to believe that he IS Virgil Flowers... crime solving and woman-loving cop. And the women are his bright, strong, equals. Hey... I gave it five stars.. so... I say... listen to Bad Blood, but do it in the order that Sanford's written these books. You'll thank me, or thank Sanford and Conger when you do.

Okay, y'gotta read Rough Country to get my title up there. But you gotta read it to have a good time too. Eric Conger brings Virgil Flowers to full bloom once again and he squeezes the stitching out of every character and plot twist that John Sandford imagined in this ass kickin' adventure. If you're looking for fun wrapped inside of a nice puzzle... here it be! I'll be reading another Virgil Flowers adventure with murder, wild folks and hot women. Why? Because this one was cool.

OH... BTW... don't start with this Flowers novel. Too many flashbacks to previous stories in this series. And most of them are spoilers if and when you go back to earlier books. So... do read this, but start earlier on with the series. You'll thank me... or John Sandford.

James Lee Burke writes poetry. He wrote it better in the last book in this series, but it's still very fine here. I had trouble buying Dave Robicheaux's motivation for this undercover adventure. Wuddahell, I suspended disbelief and let the thing drift along like a log on the salt. Glad I did. Again Mark Hammer grabbed my imagination like a gator's jaws, and held fast through the rich imagery till the end. Yep, it'll be good to visit with Dave again.

Okay... the ending's either a hair ragged or I needed to pay a tad more attention. But this is an ensemble that's always fun to visit. Myron's growing darker with each new novel in this series and I'm worried that Coben might be beginning with this installment to be finding it difficult to carve the stone as sharply as he's done before. Still, Jonathan Marosz continues to create Coben's cast in ways that resonate with me. I'll find the next book in this series. But, reward yourself and don't start with "Darket Fears". Go to the beginning of this Bolitar story and work forward. This experience will be a lot fuller if you do.