cristina

This is one of those instances where I wish Audible allowed reviewers half stars. This one really deserved 2 ½. (I reserve five stars for absolutely-loved; four for really-liked; three for OK; and 1 for did-not-finish…Leaving 2 stars to cover both finished-but-hated-it and finished-but-did-not-really-like-it. The two are really quite different and this one is more of the later.)

The plot is unbelievable. It starts with the accidental discovery of a skeleton in a construction site. The body, of course (you kind of expect it, so I don’t think this is a terrible spoiler), happens to be one of two girls murdered 11 years earlier. Coincidentally (there are way too many of these coincidences throughout the book), the guy who was convicted of the murders has just been released from prison after serving a ten-year sentence. There is a traffic accident involving his mother and the two bumbling investigators go to his village to investigate.

The investigators are apparently the stars of the series (this is the first to be translated, but not the first in the series). Quite frankly, I am shocked they have a following. They are absolutely incompetent as “sleuths.” At one point, the author writes: “The pieces of the puzzle were falling in place as if by themselves.” And that is precisely what happens. It seems that everyone in the village is guilty of something or another and everyone confesses or gets discovered purely by chance. There is one instance, I kid you not, where the suspect disappears and the two "investigators" say to each other (I paraphrase): “I thought you were taking him to the station!” “What? I thought you were!”

There are also some things that are never fully explained. (Why one character hid a will that would have made his family rich, for example.)

I found most of the characters, even the protagonist, unlikeable. Our "hero" went to prison after getting so drunk eleven years earlier that he simply could not remember what happened during an entire night. And yet, mere days after getting out of prison, he proceeds to do the exact same thing! If ten years in prison for a crime you don’t remember committing don’t cure you of binge drinking, what will?

I didn't really hate the novel but it is, at best, mediocre. Like I said, two-and-half stars: Finished it but did not really like it.

I loved this book.The only reason I took one star away from the "story" is because I saw the ending coming a little earlier than I would have liked. That said, everything else was fantastic. The character development. The plot. The twists and turns as the two attorneys keep uncovering more and more lies their client has told. And the PERFORMANCE! Mr. Collins does an absolutely phenomenal job with each and every line, each and every voice, bringing the story to life almost like if you were watching it happen.

I really liked Mr. Mitzner's first book. This one is even better. As I said in my review for his first, I hope he writes fast!

OK, the novel probably does not deserve five stars -- there are a few too many serendipitous encounters and Patrick is way too lucky even for a fictional hero. Still, I loved it. I literally could not stop listening. When other things got in the way -- like work!!! -- I could not wait to get back to it.

I am a sucker for werewolf and vampire stories (this one is just the former), but this novel is about more. There are quite obvious parallels to current political and religious themes (there are the "good" werewolves and the "terrorist" werewolves, setting up bombs, etc. There is the occupied werewolf country that the U.S. needs for its uranium mines...)...But, as Mr. Percy seems to want us to understand, we should not be too quick to judge. There's very good and very bad -- and everything in between -- on both sides. Even among the terrorists who are setting up the bombs, there are some "good" people (a hard thing for me to swallow since I live in Boston and the Marathon bombings happened just a month ago). Still, Mr. Percy has enough talent to make you see "the other side."

He is a very GOOD writer -- nothing like a well-written horror yarn!

The plot gripped me from the start -- and it does not let up. Even with the serendipitous occurrences that I mentioned before, it is a nicely woven story. I was afraid that the ending would let me down -- how can this END? -- but it did not. In fact, I thought the ending was perfect...and I cannot say anything more without spoiling it.

At first, Mr. Percy's reading is a tad hard to get used to. Then it becomes one of the things you absolutely love. (I am not sure if I would have felt the same if he had not been the author...I probably would have thought that he was reading too much 'drama' into some of the scenes. But, since he was the author, clearly the drama was meant to be there.) In fact, I looked at the other novel he has in Audible and was disappointed that he was not the narrator.

I highly recommend Red Moon. Well done. Mr. Percy, well done!

I enjoyed the previous two books and was disappointed with this third installment. Unlike some of the other reviewers, however, my disappointment was not with the abrupt ending. It was with the novel itself. The story 'reads' like a plot outline -- with absolutely no character development whatsoever even by Jeffrey Archer's standards. So Character A, for example, will go from being a difficult child to a model adolescent with absolutely no explanation as to what brought the change about. Character B, besotted with his wife and willing to forsake all else at her request, is able to move on from his infatuation at the drop of a dime. Of course, the infatuation seems absurd from the start since Character C, the wife, is a cartoonish Cruella Deville without a single redeeming quality -- and the fact that Character B fell madly in love with her seems, well, out of character. In this novel, the characters are all lowercase and act however they have to at that moment in order to move The Plot along. And, believe me, The Plot moves...at dizzying speed and in all kinds of preposterous directions. It's almost like if Archer is thinking of what will happen next as he types! In fact, I am not even sure what "the Best Kept Secret" was meant to be since the story line regarding what I THOUGHT was "the secret" does not get resolved. In fact, it is not even mentioned in the last 50 or more pages of The Plot. (Could it be that the audible production did leave a section out?) If you are a Jeffrey Archer fan, by all means, download it. It's not deep, but it is kind-of entertaining. I am sure I will buy the next one.

I do not consider myself squeamish. I absolutely loved "Gone Girl" and all of that author's books. I am watching "The Following" on TV (where at least one person dies a horrific and very graphic death in every show). Still, there was something very disturbing about this novel. When it got to a blow-by-blow (so to speak) description of a sex phone call (definitely you would not think that would/could have been as 'violent' as some things I've read, watched or listened to), I realized my entire body was cringing. I read for entertainment -- and I was not being entertained. I was being tortured. It almost felt as if the author was enjoying it as much as the 'bad' characters in the book. Too realistic? (Too sadistic?) Maybe. "Well" written, but not for me. Definitely not entertaining.

Perhaps this is my fault, but I could not get past the pathos. The characters leave such incredibly depressing lives (the ones who didn't have it that bad felt that they did)...and, quite frankly, I did not feel that McMahon was going to make the ending worthwhile. There were too many implausible "twists" already. Too many relationships that simply did not add up. A better listener might have struggled on and gotten to the ending that other reviewers are praising, I couldn't. Listened to about two thirds of the book and gave up.

The reviewer who said there was no character development was absolutely right. In fact, there were times when I felt the characters (particularly the males) were interchangeable. The characters themselves must have felt the same way because, when one drops dead, they move on with very little apparent sadness. If you want a truly fun man-vs.-supernatural caper, listen to the superb Jonathan Mayberry (Maberry?) Joe Ledger series. There the male chauvinist hero does not get in the way -- and the story itself is a ton of fun. Here, the characters are just going through the motions. We all know there are more books coming, so we don't expect (or get) any sort of conclusion. Like I said, a comic book. I finished it (largely, I think, because of the superb narrator), but won't be downloading the next in the series.

Dexter is just fun (there are moments when I literally laughed out loud). The relationships between Dexter, Rita, and the children keep building delightfully. So, if you like Dexter and like the show, you will not be disappointed. However, if you have never read one of the books in this series, start elsewhere. The plot is intriguing but I found the ending to be anti-climatic. Too sudden after all the set up. It left me anticipating the next installment, the next program.Unfortunately, I will have to wait more than one week.

The story is kind of like an onion. Our heroine, basically, lives several lives at once. Surprisingly, the author manages to pull it off without much confusion or contrivance. Even more surprising, it works in audio form (credit goes to the narrator as well, who is quite good). I did not give it five stars only because, as another reviewer also mentions, there is one gratuitous event that turns what is a very believable bunch of lives into a fairy tale for a moment. The novel did not need that -- and it makes the book almost fail towards the end.

Still, I liked it. Particularly the fact that, even though the heroine is shaped by the events in her lives, she is -- at her core -- who she is in spite of that.

Have enjoyed all of Kate Atkinson's books. This one is no exception.

The sheer imagination!!! Yes, you've read books about aliens, and books about spies and secret government agencies, and books where the bad guys are really, really bad and the good guys are really, really good...but the way Maberry combines all these things makes all his Joe Ledger novels an absolute joy ride. You'll gasp. You'll laugh. (You might even cringe a little when Joe acts a little too macho even for Joe.) But you will not be able to put the book down. Download. And enjoy.

The plot is reminiscent of, well, the author's first novel: a normal sort of person is lured into a life of crime almost by chance and gets more and more corrupted by the experience as he goes along. To be honest, I was a little surprised: was this going to be Mr. Laukkanen's premise in every novel? (Could we expect, for example, an art teacher to become an art thief in his next one?) Still, the writing was so entertaining -- and Mr. Ballerini so superb as the reader, as usual -- that I didn't really mind. In the end, I found it to be even better than The Professionals. The line between the good and the bad guys is clearer here. The personal 'qualities' that make the main character keep on robbing banks more believable (although there are plenty of improbable coincidences but, again, I did not mind). Tons of surprises. Tons of fun.