The Delilah Complex

By: M. J. Rose

Narrated by: Phil Gigante, Natalie Ross

Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

The Scarlet Society is a secret club of 12 powerful and sexually adventurous women. But when a photograph of the body of one of the men they're recruited to dominate - strapped to a gurney, the number 1 inked on the sole of his foot - is sent to the New York Times, they are shocked and frightened.

Unable to cope with the tragedy, the women turn to Dr. Morgan Snow. But what starts out as grief counseling quickly becomes a murder investigation, with any one of the 12 women a potential suspect.

The case leads Detective Noah Jordan - a man with whom Morgan has shared a brief, intense connection - to her office. He fears the number on the man's foot hints that the killings have just begun. With her hands tied by her professional duty, Morgan is dangerously close to the demons in her own mind - and the flesh-and-blood killer. (A multicast production.)

©2006 MJ Rose (P)2011 Writers House (MJ Rose)

A great addition to the series

An entertaining read, with more of the same from the first book in the series: a series of crimes needing to be solved by Detective Jordaine, et al. and somehow requiring the Morgan's skillset as a sex psychologist. Overall, I particularly like Noah Jordaine as a character and I always look forward to his chapters, though Morgan gets a bit repetitive at times. That said, I'm definitely looking forward to the next book. (Note: I listened to this as an Audible audiobook: the narrators' performances was even better than the first book and is one of the key reasons I look forward to the next novel!)

Worst book I've listened to from audio

What would have made The Delilah Complex better?

Make it half as long.

Has The Delilah Complex turned you off from other books in this genre?

No, just from this author.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment. Kept waiting for it to get better but it just kept getting worse.

Narration was Awesome but Story was Huge Fail

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A better, more believable story. Perhaps told in 3rd person also. Not having a TSTL heroine who puts others in danger because of her actions.

Would you ever listen to anything by M. J. Rose again?

Probably will listen to next book if can find at public library just to see what happens next.

Which character – as performed by Phil Gigante and Natalie Ross – was your favorite?

Noah, Det. Perez. Phil Gigante almost always gets characters with any kind of accent just right.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Delilah Complex?

The last scene as well as all scenes mentioning butterflies. I'm not sure why butterflies are so important to Morgan and possibly the story. Maybe I missed the reference at some point.Also, I would cut way down on Morgans' soliloquies. Her constant introspection gets very wearing and boring.

Any additional comments?

**Minor Spoilers**

What's left to say? I read the first book, The Halo Effect, and mostly enjoyed it though I had some of the same problems I had with this book (excessive introspection and sometimes whininess on the part of Morgan). Morgan Snow, for the most part, seemed to be a sensible and intelligent person who was doing her best to raise her daughter, Dulcie, and go on with her life after divorcing Dulcie's father.My main problem:If I'm reading a contemporary mystery, I have to be able to believe, with not too much of a stretch, that some actions, though they might not WOULD happen, COULD happen especially when you are talking about medical professionals, and especially medical professionals who may deal with potentially violent patients/clients. There were numerous times in this book that Morgan, as a psychotherapist, put herself and others in danger while dealing with obviously unhinged patients. She even at one point seemed to ridicule someone who was being threatened by a totally unhinged person wielding a pair of scissors and couldn't understand why he didn't simply take them away from the wielder. Another time, she instructed her receptionist to call 911 on an obviously disturbed individual who might or might not have been the murderer (he was obviously drugged out and continually brandished a razor blade) then she allowed her obviously frightened receptionist to walk into her office to deliver a pitcher of water. After the patient was taken away, Morgan's boss, Nina, dresses her down for calling the police AND not disarming the guy with the razor blade. Huh? Her explanation is that since they are, of course, trained in self-defense and karate, then she should have done this instead of calling the police (Nina has an unreasoning hatred of cops which makes me wonder how good a therapist she actually is).

Add to this the extremely unprofessional behavior exhibited by Morgan: Going to a client's (who may or may not be involved in the crimes) house for sessions and knowing a HUGE secret about another client (again, who may or may not be involved with the crimes) and not calling her on it let alone encouraging her to come clean with police and her employer. Some other minor problems I've got: Morgan's obsession with butterflies (maybe I missed the reason for this?), Morgan's obsession with her sense of smell (this is mentioned constantly throughout the book), Morgan's weird empathic link with her daughter (she always knows when she's got a headache, tummy ache, what she's thinking, feeling, blah, blah, blah).

It boils down to this story trying to go too many directions at once with the result being a thin plot that gets bogged down in too many unimportant points, a not-that-hard-to-figure-out bad guy, and a, ahem, not too terribly climactic ending. And butterflies.