Prior Bad Acts

By: Tami Hoag

Narrated by: Holter Graham

Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

It was a crime so brutal, it changed the lives of even the most hardened homicide cops. The Haas family murders left a scar on the community nothing can erase, but everyone agrees that convicting the killer, Karl Dahl, is a start. Only Judge Carey Moore seems to be standing in the way. Her ruling that Dahl's prior criminal record is inadmissible raises a public outcry, and puts the judge in grave danger. When an unknown assailant attacks Judge Moore in a parking garage, two of Minneapolis' top cops are called upon to solve the crime and keep the judge from further harm.

Detective Sam Kovac is as hard-boiled as they come, and his wisecracking partner, Nikki Liska, isn't far behind. Neither one wants to be on this case, but when Karl Dahl escapes from custody, everything changes, and a seemingly straightforward case cartwheels out of control. The stakes go even higher when the judge is kidnapped, snatched out of her own bed even as the police sit outside, watching her house. Now Kovac and Liska must navigate through a maze of suspects that includes the stepson of a murder victim, a husband with a secret life, and a rogue cop looking for revenge where the justice system failed. With no time to spare, the detectives are pulled down a strange dark trail of smoke and mirrors, where no one is who they seem and everyone is guilty of Prior Bad Acts.

©2006 Tami Hoag (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The breathtaking plot twists are perfectly paced in this compulsive page-turner." (Publishers Weekly)
"A first-rate thriller with an ending that will knock your socks off." (Booklist)

Good book - bad listen

Clever plot, decent characters and character development, but oh my word - where did this reader come from? He made it difficult to listen to for more than a few minutes at a time. Constantly 'acting' parts, accenting and inflecting the narrative as if reading a nursery tale to a child. I would have rated this book four stars but for him.

No solid feeling for this one..

I had been skimming around this one for awhile, I am a Tami Hoag fan but I also know she can be hit or miss and so i wasn't sure about it. I liked it but would not want to listen to it again. Wasn't a favorite. The title words ' Prior Bad Acts' I thought were said way to many times by the characters. I'd have to listen to it again to count how many times exactly and I don't want to do that. But you'll see what I mean if you listen too. Decently devolped until somewhere in the middle when what you liked about the book, the hard no nonsense idea of the players became sort of like melting ice cream and the end up loosing what you had grown to like them for. Another middle of the road listen for me. Holter Graham doesn't do a bad job. There are way worse narrators that have come thru my ear buds. This ones a shoulder shrug.

Exciting!

This was a great listen! Thoroughly enjoyable.

Wendy from Katy, Tx

Loved this book....kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. Great whodunit Book.

Prior Bad Acts

Thoroughly enjoyable mystery. Kept me wanting to get back to it to see what happenned next.

sick and twisted, love it

Really sick and twisted murders and the aftermath of it all. There were so many crimes to fight, victims to help, and criminals to find.

I figured it couldn't of been the criminal they put on trial and I was right. Of my two guesses, I was right! It took me a while, but it was clear to me but everyone in the book.

You just never know the true thoughts and evil inside of a person.

Great Story by a great writer

O Tami Hoag at her best! She is so good and deserves to be listened to by everyone who loves crime novels, buddy flicks, and courtroom antics! Just fabulous!

predictable

even though the identity of the perps is left to the end, the love interest angle is so obvious... its ok, but not as good as some crime stories

I didn't like this narrator as much

Good book! I had to get used to this narrator though. I didn't like him as much as the first books narrator.

Superb Mystery Thriller

This was the first Tami Hoag novel I've listened to but it almost certainly won't be the last. The story kept me interested from the first chapter to the very end.

The characters in the book are developed well and the authors style of telling the story from each characters point of view provided excellent reading. The ending surprised me and as I thought several times through the book that I'd worked it out, just goes to show I'm not as good a detective as I thought. I was also pleased to hear some post stories to the main characters rather than the usual end of story anti-climax.

Holter Graham also did a superb job at narraton. A riveting read and well worth the download. Highly recommended!