The Unraveling of Violeta Bell

A Morgue Mama Mystery

By: C. R. Corwin

Narrated by: Lorna Raver

Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

Maddy Sprowls, newspaper librarian for the Hannawa Herald-Union, prefers to stay in the newspaper morgue and do her job. But one Saturday, she sees four elderly women get out of a taxicab at a garage sale. She figures that those women must hire that cabby every week to drive them from garage sale to garage sale, and wouldn't that make a great feature story for the paper?

Shortly after the story runs, one of the four women, retired antiques dealer Violeta Bell, is murdered. Maddy wants no part of the investigation, but before she knows it, she's on another of her infamous snoopathons.

Was it bargains they were hunting or something else?

©2008 2008 by C.R. Corwin (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Irascible, fearless and unapologetic, Maddy is a heroine cozy fans will embrace." ( Publishers Weekly)

A light read.

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Someone who doesn't want any

Has The Unraveling of Violeta Bell turned you off from other books in this genre?

I didn't care for the reader or the main character. To me it was just a

How could the performance have been better?

I don't know

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

Nothing, just didn't care for it.

Cute. What else can I say.

The story is precious. "Cute" is another word that comes to mind. I didn't dislike it (yes, I know, it's damned with faint praise.) It was OK. I'm sorry, but that's just the truth. The narration was good. I found it easy to follow the characters. Having said that, the plot was not challenging. I do like the character of Maddy Sprowls. I appreciate her humor and take-no-prisoners attitude, so I got to chuckle a lot over her antics. I enjoyed the story and can't discourage you, the reader, from giving it a try if you understand what you're getting. It's a "confection", not a masterpiece.

I wanted to love it

Great reader, and the bones of the mystery were good -- twists and turns. I wanted to like it. But it was just too much yakking about her life -- a fine line -- and politicizing the novel where it was just not the right time. The mystery itself was good.

Good reading

This is a great book. We listened to this on the way to Florida from Michigan. The charaters and story have some laugh out loud humorous moments and dialog. Good story. Even our 16 year old son enjoyed the story.

Hummm??

It sounded like a good story but the narration is so distracting that I couldn't concentrate. I had to stop listening to it.

I want more of this series

I bought it because it was on sale and sounded worth trying; now I'm very frustrated because Audible doesn't have more of these! The story was fun and entertaining -- light compared to most of the mysteries I read and listen to, but not light on the story content. It was a great story and the narrator was perfect for the character.

So Audible, where are the rest of these??

an appalling accent

This may or may not be a good book. The reader's accent made it impossible for me to get past the first 3 minutes. Do yourself a favor and listen first.

Don’t bother

Seldom have I read a work with such overworked and over reaching descriptions, asides, plot and characters. If I hadn’t taken more than a year to get around to reading this, I would have returned it. As it was, after 2 hr (the good college try), I flipped to the final hour to find the killer. Don’t bother even trying this.

Great book, the Best of readers

A truly enjoyable book. This was my first C. R. Corwin book, and what a surprise. She's entertaining, and keeps you guessing. I especially enjoyed the narrator, Suzanne Toren. She brings Corwin's books to life with so much animation. I will definitely be listening to the rest of her books.

It gave me a headache and bored me!

Thank God my iPod lets me set the narrative on a faster playback or I could of never finished this book. It's just plain silly, not charming.The narrator is very talented, but for some reason she choose to use a most irritating voice (think nails on a blackboard) for the main character. Instead of sounding like a woman in her late 60's, she sounds like a 102 year woman who has lived on an isolated farm in Kansas her whole life. Pass the aspirin.