Marian

I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery. The plot, with its miriad twists and turns, kept my attention. However, beyond having an excellent plot, this book also provided an excellent depiction of Southern living and mores. Indeed, the entire experience was reminiscent of Greg Iles, who is one of my favorite authors.

As always, I really enjoyed this latest Tempe Brennan novel which sported a fast-paced plot and good, intriguing science. The ultimate ending was a bit overly convoluted but it was well supported by the rest of the plot. I especially enjoyed the depictions of CIL-HI operations.

Readers who enjoyed Thomas Holland's One Drop of Blood will likely enjoy this and vice versa.

This book was a real disappointment. The ending was telegraphed about two thirds of the way through the book and, while it had an interesting twist, the writing provided little support for the story. Worst of all, the characters were cardboard representations of conventional stereotypes--particularly the hero, who was depicted as the typical hostile, aggressive but highly competent NYC cop. The villian (or villians--don't want to spoil the plot) had no real motivation at all, at least none that rang true.

So, this novel filled up about 9 hours (part listened to as an audiobook, part read as an eBook at bedtime along the way) of dead time on a long driving trip, thus serving its primary purpose. Beyond that, however, it has little redeeming literary or social importance.

If reading co-authored James Patterson novels, I think I'll stick to the ones co-authored by either Maxine Paetro or Michael Ledgewick.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and, despite what others have said, thought the narrator was superb. I haven't particularly enjoyed Joseph Finder's last couple of novels, which were only so-so. However, Vanished represents a return to the action-packed, rough and tumble novel that I like so much from Finder, novels like Paranoia! Great book... I can't wait for the next Nick Heller novel.

My only complaint is that at the end of the book, we are told that there is a PDF containing Gabe's graphic novel on the CD. But there appears to be no way to obtain this PDF with the Audible version, much to my disappointment.

Even though I sort of figured out the ending early on in this book, that did not detract from my enjoyment in listening to it. The characters are well developed, the plot has lots of convolutions and the author clearly knows forensic science. All in all, a great first novel. I look forward to his next, hopefully also starring McKelvey and Levine.

Another excellent Madriani novel by Steve Martini. I only wish the unabridged version had been available, too.

One would think a book with good character development and a timely topic would translate into a great read. And so it might be with Conviction, were it not for the fact that I was expecting a mystery novel and instead got a thinly veiled polemic against the death penalty.

This book plods along for far too long exploring each vagary of the lengthy appeals process in death penalty cases. It would have been better if it were shorter by half and, more importantly, if it had some exciting action (although some might suggest that the ending IS exciting--I just happen not to be among them). Clearly this is NOT one of Patterson's best books.

Even Michael Beck, who was wonderful as always reading Grisham, can save this book from itself. The descriptions of Italy are lyrical, but this is supposed to be a novel and a thriller to boot. Not only isn't this book thrilling, there is essentially no plot. What's more the characters are flat and not in the least bit engaging.

If you must have meandering descriptive prose from Grisham, then read The Last Juror in which the descriptions match those in The Broker, but which has engaging characters who develop as the plot (yes, plot!) develop. Evidently Grisham fancies himself a latter day Faulkner--he's got the wordiness down pat, just not the enduring worth underlying the long-winded prose.

Boring, boring, boring. I couldn't wait for this book to end.

I really enjoyed this book--it got me hooked on Brad Meltzer. And, as always, Scott Brick's narration was superb. Don't listen to the nay sayers... this one's a keeper.

Although this book was a bit slow-moving in the middle, the ending was worth the wait and the character development was, in retrospect, excellent. I really enjoyed the narrator's brogue; he truly brought Lachlan Harriott alive!

This book would have merited 5 stars had the middle moved faster and had the action not shifted back and forth in time quite as much. I didn't have trouble following the plot, but I can see why other reviewers might well have.

Definitely worth a listen!