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A Textbook Case  By  cover art

A Textbook Case

By: Jeffery Deaver
Narrated by: January LaVoy,Edoardo Ballerini
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Publisher's summary

From Jeffery Deaver - the New York Times best-selling author of the upcoming Lincoln Rhyme novel The Kill Room - comes an original short story featuring Rhyme.

When a young woman is found brutally murdered in a parking garage, with a veritable mountain of potential evidence to sift through, it may be the most challenging case former NYPD detective Lincoln Rhyme has ever taken on.

©2013 Jeffery Deaver (P)2013 Hachette

What listeners say about A Textbook Case

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Producers, please listen - stop the madness!

I left a similar comment about another book by another one of my favorite authors. As with that one, because of the way the book is produced, I can't listen and plan to return it. (I love Jeffery Deaver and Lincoln Rhyme, so I'm sure it's great and sure hope it's available on Kindle.) So I gave the story 5 even though I couldn't get through it. So back to the rant - unless a book is meant to be a PLAY, please do not have several 'actors' inject quotes when another person is narrating. It's jarring and just unlistenable. I just finished a book entirely narrated by Edoardo Ballerini and it was great (Speaks the Nightingale, Robert McCammon, book 1, Matthew Corbett series). In some cases, it works to use multiple narrators if there are whole sections coming from the point of view of a certain character and one narrator does all the quotes in a section. Still, my first choice would be Eduardo Ballerini or Colin Firth telling me the whole story....

Producers, please please stop - don't let this annoying style of production become a trend!

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Wonderful narration!

This novella/short story is a clever little story. Like most of Jeffrey Deaver's books it is a sold 3 star.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Great narration---Story just average

Maybe I know Jeffery Deaver's writing style too well, as I have read most of his books and kind of know what to expect. There is always a little "twist" or "slight of hand" to try and take you in one direction, when the actual perpetrator is someone you would not expect. However, it wasn't hard to figure out. The killer does use a unique method of covering his tracks- which I had not seen done before, and was really pretty brilliant.

However, this short story could have been more enjoyable if it were a little longer, allowing the drama to play out, and letting the characters become more fully developed. On the plus side, the narration was very good.

One problem right after the 1 hour mark, the audio portion has a glitch and some of the content is cut off --parts of sentences are lost. This goes on for about 10 minutes, however, whatever was said during that time probably didn't make much difference to the content or outcome.

***There is a nice preview of his new book coming out in June, which sounds pretty intriguing.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Nice little story

Even though we readers would like every plot to be a 13-hour novel, authors are not required to turn every idea into a saga. This is a nice little story. Could it be longer? Sure, we trust Deaver could have made it longer. But that's okay. Short and sweet. All about the evidence.

January LaVoy is great when she reads the Katherine Dance books. Edoardo Ballerini is superb reading the Rhyme books. I am not a fan of mixing readers in one book. I have never heard it work out. When it's just a book, it is actually disruptive for a second voice to interject. When it is written as an audio play, you usually can't distinguish the characters.

But enjoy this for what it is.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good Story

Not Deavers best, but in his top 10%. Worth the time, but did not pull me in like some of his stories.
Still, better than many other authors.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Hmmmm.

I am not a fan of multiple voices for the characters - it seems disruptive to me.
Also, not a particular fan of the short story. The cases I’m used to by Lincoln and team are too complex and suffer when truncated.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

As all his Lincoln Rhyme books -FABULOUS.

Didn’t enjoy the narrators. If you don’t pay strict attention you don’t know who is talking.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great short story

Another great Lincoln Rhyme story!! I only wish the series would settle on one narrator! The voice for Amelia Sacks was way to 'girlie' for anyone who has followed the series! She sounded like a sixth grader rather than the seasoned NYC Detective!
Her voice actually detracted from an otherwise excellent presentation!!!!!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Awful

This is the worst book I ever read. I was so disappointed in it I am returning it

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Bite sized fun

There's no heavy lifting here, story-wise, but the performances are good and it's an amusing confection.

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