p

Before reading I had high hopes based on the authors prior books and the good narator. The story and the characters were just washed out versions of Berry's other books and characters. You couldn't like or really dislike any of them, they all lacked enough substance to generate any feeling. Weak plot, weak characters, I feel like I a wasted a credit because I expected much better. I get the whole flawed hero as a main character but these charaters were just boring, and the daughter as described by her backstory was educated, religious, divorced, a grown women but came across in the rest of the book as a contradication behaving more like a college student, immature, naive, whiny. I'd give this book a pass unless it was on sale.

it lacked the thriller aspect, it just felt like a watered down version of the other (Malone) novels

Scoot Brick is usally very good, but he sounded very monotone and unenthusiastic, it only added to the lack interest of the story

Nope

I love Ruth Dudley Edwards, a bristish mystery with lots of dark humor. I loved Bill Wallis's narration of all the previous books, he brought great identity to each character. This new narrator fell flat and made it difficult to identify who was speaking as there was little difference from one characters portrayal to another.

not really - I missed the 'darkly comic' aspect, its was interconnected characters all mired in their own misery and downloading it onto others around them, I found none of the characters redeeming, at best you would pity one for a while and then just be frustrated with their actions, not one seemed to have a bit of common sense. It just became annoying.

The outline was interesting - it presented as a story with potential. What made me lose interest quickly was that chapter after chapter the events were circular and outcomes became predictable, its was like reading a documentry on the welfare system. The book was too long for the story to be told.

He worked well with the material but the nature of the book lead to the narration coming across as flat and monotonous

no

I recoginze the author is out to break away from past novels that were fantasy based, but in all honesty I found this book devoid of life, there were more realistic characters, flaws and all in the Harry Potter books.