The Sugar House: A Tess Monaghan Mystery

I adore this series and this might be my favorite. It is a perfectly woven mystery with layer upon layer. It unravels at a nice pace and kept me interested the entire time. Good ending too. Great character development all around.

I love Tess Monaghan and jumped in right after I finished "In Big Trouble." When I started the book, I honestly could not tell if the narrator was male or female. I came back Audible and was shocked to see the narrator was Barbara Rosenblatt whom I have heard in numerous audio books and always enjoyed. Her voice is unusually gruff and abrasive. Also, her characterization of the major players seems a bit on the sarcastic side, plus, some of the voices sound like they're from the deep south rather than Baltimore. I am planning on going through the series in order, and almost dread listening to the ones by Rosenblatt. I may read them instead. I would say to listen to a sample. This makes me sad. She's always been one of my bankable narrators who is a pleasure to listen to.

From the very beginning, I could hardly believe my ears. Had Barbara Rosenblat been abducted by evil aliens who just wanted to mess with her voice? I was completely surprised - the voice was almost her, but kind of like she had something extra in her mouth.

Anyway, I listened to the story and just IMAGINED the voice I used to know. It is a good story, very well written and while not edge of your seat suspenseful, it did hold my interest throughout. This was only the second book I've listened to by this author- and I'll probably listen to more. There was only one thing that I didn't like about the story- it seemed to be filled with too much cute banter between Tess and Whitney--more than would be normal in the real world. I mean, do they have to find something witty to say every time they speak?

Overall, the story is worth it if you don't mind the narration being off somewhat,

I take chances listening to new authors only when read my favorite narrator. This story grabbed your ear phones and would not let you take them off until the last words were uttered. Lippman is now on my list of authors I listen to. I like stories about areas I am familiar with and Baltimore was a great place for this story to take place in. After hearing the book I actually road through several of the areas mentioned in the book. Maryland is truly a beautiful state and I enjoyed hearing about it in this fantastic book.

Good story & Barbara Rosenblatt does a great job of telling Tess's tale (although sometimes the Balmer accent gets a little too thick to be understood). It's got a good plot, but a details of Maryland towns it's late 20th century political scandals bog down the story rather than enhance it.

I like Laura Lippman (recommend "What the dead know" but this narrator was impossible for me to listen to. It sounded like someone who smoked for 50 years. I might have liked the book better with another narrator.

The story is told from the point of view of the protagonist Tess Monaghan. There is substantial character development of her and of her father and friends. I liked the plot and sympathized with Tess as she experienced twists and turns, misdirection and progress, roadblocks and breakthroughs. The development of the plot is rather slow, but much of the work of a detective is painstaking, and I liked Tess's attention to detail,leaving no stone unturned. However, the unveiling of the villains and the discovery of the truth happens very quickly toward the end. Further, having followed Tess around living in her shoes day after day, I felt cheated in the end. The author chooses to omit a number of planning meetings with her closest compatriots in order to surprise the reader along with some of Tess's adversaries. No such omissions occurred earlier. To play such a trick on the reader is an insult to the style of the rest of the book. I must say that I did guess more or less how things would turn out, and I was not so surprised by the revelations, but I won't give anything away. I think Lippman's "In a Strange City" was a better story. I think Barbara Rosenblat gave a very good narration, almost a dramatization at times, giving different voices, accents, and flavor to the different characters.

I loved this series. But this book is narrated by a new person. The narrator is terrible. I won't be able to listen to this book. She has completely changed the personality of Tess, the main character, in her poor narrating. It is really too bad because the earlier narrator was wonderful.

I liked the character, setting, and premise, but towards the end, it felt as if the author got fed up and tied up all the loose ends and punished the wicked, toot sweet. Perhaps another book of Lippman's would be a better option.