Robert

My first (and last) Peter Lovesey mystery, I found Inspector Diamond to be totally unlikable. I kept waiting for the revelation of some positive character trait to emerge, but none were forthcoming. Bitter, angry, ill-tempered, self-centered and rude, was he. Kept asking myself, "Why am I listening to this?" I vow to reinstate an earlier strategy that got lost after over 200 really good audiobooks: If the book, movie, or program is dull, boring, unentertaining or uninformative by a quarter of the way through, don't waste time with the remainder, clinging to the hope that it will somehow magically become worthwhile.

Perhaps a cut above average story and a good, sound performance. I'm not a fisherman, but the fly fishing details and threat to trout were interesting; nonetheless, I wouldn't welcome a steady diet of that much detail. I found the several physical injuries to the protagonist a bit overdone.

The who-done-it aspect was most interesting. The on-again-off-again romance episodes would hardly capture one's attention very effectively. If I had been reading, rather than listening, I would probably have skipped much of that.

Hard to say what character was performed best. Rick Holmes was so practiced and adroit he became invisible as the reader. All one hears is the characters, and the performance becomes transparent, as it should with a really professional job.

Well, . . . I'm not going to take up fly fishing for trout, if that's what you're asking; however, I am going to check on the author's latest book.

Nobody I would like to know! I can't imagine anyone who would find any artistic or entertainment value in this book.

I'm not fond of unidimensional characters. The protagonist (lawyer) is emotionally blind, deaf and dumb. Stupid, too. Legal detail plays a 2 percent part of the book. Nobody, and I do mean nobody thinks, talks, or acts like these characters. It's so bad I was embarrassed to listen -- like watching a grade school play when the script was written by the class idiot.

Bond with a better author.

Yes, all of those, and more!

Sure. I'd like my money back!

I found the extensive, detailed, repeated sadomasochistic content to be repulsive and abhorrent. To make matters worse, it had virtually nothing to do with the plot or story line. Each time I came to one of those passages I would skip ahead, only to find another such episode a few minutes later. This was a real shock, since I enjoyed "Hit Man" and "Hit Parade" by the same author. I'm not put off by violence, not even by gory descriptions of blood and guts, but body piercing and elaborate descriptions of sexual sadomasochism were way too much for me. Not even the superb narration by George Guidell could save this experience. If you decide to ignore this warning and buy the book anyhow, I would strongly suggest you listen to it on an empty stomach, and certainly not in your car. You may not be able to pull over quickly enough.

Block is exceptionally able to weave a great story. I enjoy his work when he includes only the elements relevant to the story line or to flesh out the principal characters. The gratuitous sadomasochistic sex and body piercing didn't lend anything and I found them a real turn-off.

Disgust, revulsion, nausea.

I think I've said enough.

Ever go to a children's play or pageant where the performance was so terribly bad you felt empathic embarrassment? That's how I felt after listening to this book for a half-hour. Deleting all "dramatic pauses" would shorten it by a third. It sounded as though both author and reader were trying to turn very bad prose into even worse poetry. I'll not buy anything else of this author, if there is another book.

"Where the Dead Lay" is among the very worst of the 183 books I have downloaded from Audible.com as well as hundreds of others on tape or disk from other sources. The plot is exaggerated to the point where one can no longer "suspend disbelief." Development of the characters is just as poorly executed. At no point does the story approach believability. Nor is there the slightest redemption in the performance of the reader, Scott Brick. Although he appears to be a popular reader of audio books, he uses the same, falling inflection on what seems to be about 90 percent of the sentences, adding to the dismal mood of the book and the characters that people it. I frequently check readers reviews, but this is the first I have contributed. I am doing so in the hope of helping others to avoid an unfortunate experience. With this book, the writing and the reading are astound consistent with one another and throughout, but unfortunately they are consistently bad.