Murder Is Private

Susan Wiles Schoolhouse Mystery, Book 4

De: Diane Weiner

Narrado por: Emma Speer

Eerie violin music, flashing lights, a battered security guard, a dead music teacher...more than Susan Wiles bargained for when she flew to Florida to meet her newly found birth mother, Audrey Roberts, for the first time.

Audrey is in charge of Hemingway High School for the Performing Arts, a tony private school in Banyan Beach, Florida. The bad publicity surrounding the school jeopardizes its existence when donors threaten to withhold funding and parents begin withdrawing their students.

Lucky for Audrey, Susan happens to be a retired music teacher and an amateur sleuth extraordinaire. Against the wishes of Susan’s detective daughter who has accompanied her on the trip, Susan volunteers to substitute for the dead choral teacher and uses her new position to work on solving the case.

©2015 Diane Weiner (P)2021 Diane Weiner

Meeting your birth mother isn't smooth sailing

In this story, Susan, Lynette, and family meet Audrey Roberts, Susan’s birth mother. The all wind up in Florida.

Audrey works at a performing arts school where a music teacher is killed. With her background as a music teacher, Susan fills in as her substitute while doing some sleuthing. Coincidentally, Lynette's old boyfriend, Kevin, is the detective working on the case.

The mystery has a lot of twists, turns, and of course Susan comes out whinier than even in this audio version. It’s never easy meeting your birth mother especially after not knowing for 62 years that you were adopted.

I liked the story but would change the voice of Susan.

Ruined by narrator

I listened to books 1, 2, and 3 with virtual voice narration--it really worked well except for small glitches like calling 911 nine-hundred-eleven. This human narrator's forced dramatic tone and Fran Drescher, over-the-top New York accent are nonstop and truly grating, so much so that annoyance gets in the way of paying attention to the story. I was enjoying the audio series, but can't continue with it.