Ruth

Sean Duffy. He's a very well rounded character, very real character.

The protagonist, Sean Duffy is such a real character. In volatile Northern Ireland with bombings, hunger strikes and what looks like a serial killer, Duffy is driven to solve the murders and distracted by a beautiful doctor. There are so many layers to this book and protagonist. As soon as I finished the book, I looked up the author to see if the second in the series was out.

I don't know

I liked the first Jack Reacher novel. However, since then, it seems like Lee Child's is phoning it in. The action is good, the sexual tension is good, Jack Reacher is a well rounded character but there are too many improbabilities. In each of the following books there were too many times when the antagonist/s would have just shot Reacher or other hostages, situations where hostages have a chance to get away but don't. In one book there is a stalemate between Reacher and the main antagonist, however, if you look critically at the situation, the other hostages could have just gotten up and walked out. The antagonist had ahold of one hostage whom he could not shoot without Reacher killing him. All other henchmen had been dispatched, therefore, the other hostages could have just gotten up and walked out. The antagonist wasn't going to take his gun off of his hostage to stop them.

This book was the straw though. The way the victims were manipulated is not just improbable, but impossible.

I'm bored with the lazy writing now.

The stories by Michael Connelly are very entertaining. Len Cariou does a good job of interpreting the men in the story but not the women. He reads them all as passive giving even some of their statements the air of questions. Rachel Walling in particular should not be read with a passive, unsure tone. Even her questions, when read, come across more forcefully, such as when Harry calls her in Echo Park for the first time and she asks him if the case is the only reason he's called. Cariou reads this line as timid and self conscious. However, the whole of Walling's lines and character suggest it should have been read as more ironic or as if she knew the effect she'd had on Bosch but wanted him to admit it.

Overall the reading is good because it mainly focuses on the character of Bosch but Cariou may need to talk to Connelly about his female characters to improve the audio experience.