Roadside Crosses

A Kathryn Dance Novel

By: Jeffery Deaver

Narrated by: Michele Pawk

Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

The Monterey Peninsula is rocked when a killer begins to leave roadside crosses beside local highways -- not in memoriam, but as announcements of his intention to kill. And to kill in particularly horrific and efficient ways: using the personal details about the victims that they've carelessly posted in blogs and on social networking websites.

The case lands on the desk of Kathryn Dance, the California Bureau of Investigation's foremost kinesics -- body language-expert. She and Deputy Michael O'Neil follow the leads to Travis Brigham, a troubled teenager whose role in a fatal car accident has inspired vicious attacks against him on a popular blog, The Chilton Report.

As the investigation progresses, Travis vanishes. Using techniques he learned as a brilliant participant in MMORPGs, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, he easily eludes his pursuers and continues to track his victims, some of whom Kathryn is able to save, some not. Among the obstacles Kathryn must hurdle are politicians from Sacramento, paranoid parents and the blogger himself, James Chilton, whose belief in the importance of blogging and the new media threatens to derail the case and potentially Dance's career. It is this threat that causes Dance to take desperate and risky measures...

In signature Jeffery Deaver style, Roadside Crosses is filled with dozens of plot twists, cliff-hangers and heartrending personal subplots. It is also a searing look at the accountability of blogging and life in the online world. Roadside Crosses is the third in Deaver's best-selling High-Tech Thriller Trilogy, along with The Blue Nowhere and The Broken Window.

Please note: Part three of this audiobook consists of The Blue Nowhere.

©2009 Jeffrey Deaver (P)2009 Simon & Schuster

Entertaining reading

Enjoyed the Kathryn Dance stories and her evolving character. Details incorporate clues to “solve” the mystery.

a painful read......don't waste your money.

I wish this book was better; its like reading a manual on body language rather than a novel; haulting prose and absolutely horrible because of the writing, not the narrating) to listen to. The narrator did the best he could with the material. I'm off Deaver forever; I couldn't evev finish it. Don't waste your money

Big Disappointment

There are three things wrong with this book: 1. the writing 2. the narration and 3. the packaging.

- The writing is disorganized. The story is too light on action and too heavy on needless detail. The dialog is childish. The "solution" to the mystery makes no sense.
- The narration is comical. The male voices sound stupid and both male and female teenagers talk like valley girls from the 80s.
- Finding out Part 3 of the book is actually another book I've already read was extremely annoying. I want a refund.

Very deceptive

No where in the review of this book did I see a disclaimer that I was buying a 20 hour long book that was made up of 6 hours of a book I had already read. I am very disappointed in Audible for this reason I am thinking of getting my audio books elsewhere

Not as good as usual

This is my least favorite Dance novel. Like everyone else, I did not enjoy the constant explanation of computer terminology (does anyone in 2008-2009 need to have terms like "http" defined!?). He also put a lot of preaching about internet safety in the mouth of the professor. However, there were some good plot twists.

Disappointed

Disappointing, story line was boring and filled with too much Bloging.

Not good

Contrived story line and cheap easy outcomes. Not worth the time. I expected better from Deaver.

Liked the book but....

I enjoyed the story,although not as much as other books I have read by this author. I got toward the end of Part 2 and couldn't help but wonder what else might happen to the characters and "low and behold" the book ended. I feel cheated by the author and by Audible. There should definitely be a refund or credits given to the members who purchased this. I have purchased 200 to 300 books since my membership began, but I have never been this disappointed with a selection.

Bad reader

I know I'll make some enemies when I say this, but the sad fact is that women readers have a great deal of difficulty in doing men's voices. This is a case in point. The narrator's idea of doing a man's voice is to sound loud and fast. This makes me miss a lot of what is being said, which is a shame, bacause when doing straight narration, she has a great, even paced voice. Most narrators use loud, fast voices during action filled scenes, which is ok. She uses it so much that sometimes when the character orders coffee, it comes out: GET ME COFFEE!!!! and I get the impression that something meaningful happenned or is about to happen. I am struggling to finish this book and I keep loosing the story line, forcing me to back up. A very dissapointing performance by Ms. Pawk.

Dated...

Probably, my least favorite Deaver book. I struggled to get to the end and found myself relieved when it was over.
The Dance character is interesting, but this book is just a mess. First, it HEAVILY incorporates technology and techno-speak into the storyline. It really dates the novel in a BAD way...in a way that makes it hard to listen to the story. I don't mind reading books set in the past...but, in this case, it just feels outdated. The biggest issue is the author's constant reference to the "synth" world... meaning, synthetic world, as opposed to internet/virtual world. Obviously, the author thought this was the right terminology or, someone advised him that it was back in the day...but, I don't recall that being a thing even in the early days of online gaming, blogging. etc... in any case, it drove me nuts.
Second, the storyline is just REALLY hard to believe. I love a mystery and can suspend my disbelief and sink into a good book as easily as the next gal, but WOW...there are so many situations and plot twists that leave you muttering, "HUH?" OR "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING" under your breath. I don't want to spoil anything, so that's all on that. But, just...wow. it was bad.