Bad Things Happen

By: Harry Dolan

Narrated by: Erik Davies

Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's Summary

A gripping novel about a man trying to escape his violent past and soon becomes a murder suspect when a publisher - and the husband of the woman he's having an affair with - turns up dead.

The man who calls himself David Loogan is hoping to escape a violent past by living a quiet, anonymous life in Ann Arbor, Michigan. But when he's hired as an editor at a mystery magazine, he is drawn into an affair with the sleek blonde wife of the publisher, Tom Kristoll - a man who soon turns up dead.

Elizabeth Waishkey is the most talented detective in the Ann Arbor Police Department, but even she doesn't know if Loogan is a killer or an ally who might help her find the truth. As more deaths start mounting up - some of them echoing stories published in the magazine - it's up to Elizabeth to solve both the murders and the mystery of Loogan himself.

"Witty, sophisticated, suspenseful and endless fun...the best first novel I've read this year." (Washington Post)

"A hypnotically readable novel, with...dialog worthy of Elmore Leonard." (Douglas Preston)

"Fans of Peter Abrahams and Scott Turow will find a lot to like." (Publishers Weekly, starred review) 

©2009 Harry Dolan (P)2009 Penguin Audiobooks

Critic Reviews

"Dolan's neatly symmetrical plot is tight, his dialogue is crisp, and his humor wry." (Booklist) 

Less Energy than JEB!

So mix satire with enough twists to thicken a clot then with characters duller than a knife that won't slice through water and, Bad Things Happen. No, actually bad is too strong an adjective, actually the book's like a knife that will just barely slice through water, y'know.

But it still slices, just took a lot of work: from me. See, it's pace that drives Harry Dolan's story about the way a '68 VW Bug will drive a U-Haul up a hill. But I digress, which is dull thing huh?

This story is all about murders that surround a man-of-mystery. The problem is, neither Dolan or Erik Davies as hard as they work - and they reeeeeely work hard - made me care about allusions, murders or man.

Nor the huge cast with (endless) speaking parts. Zzzzzz.

Potential, but too mechanical

A clever mind at work here, but far too mechanical and complicated. It involves most of the tricks and gimmicks used by crimes writers, if not them all. Definitely the first book I have read that sprayed suspicion on each and every character in the story. May be a tongue-in-cheek effort by a professional editor or College Professor incapable of an original plot or story.
Something about it seemed off, like it was written separately by a team of people and then coalesced by the HAL 5000. It left me wanting.

Entertaining but not stellar

Erik Davies did a respectable job on narration. The story took a bit to get into but ended up holding my attention. Not the best book I've ever written but it was entertaining.

Very entertaining

If you could sum up Bad Things Happen in three words, what would they be?

Light, fast, fun

Would you recommend Bad Things Happen to your friends? Why or why not?

I would. It's a light listen. Very engaging. There are some lose threads at the end, and you have to suspend disbelief. Despite all that, it was a

What about Erik Davies’s performance did you like?

He really gets into the character.

Any additional comments?

This is not the deepest novel ever, but it's really entertaining and you will find that you can't turn your device off. You always want to know what happens next.

Bad Things Happen - and this is one of them

What would have made Bad Things Happen better?

A less contorted story line; much better editing, and a far better reader. Every cliche in the literary world was used in this book, especially, "if this was a story in Graystone," the mystery magazine used as an anchor.

What was most disappointing about Harry Dolan’s story?

Most disappointing was that the book had been so well reviewed - must have been Dolan himself or his best friends writing the reviews. The story line stretched on beyond far beyond where it should have stopped and put us out of our misery.

What didn’t you like about Erik Davies’s performance?

At first I thought I was listening to an amateur - perhaps the author - reading the book. Davies' articulation of sentence structure was awkward at best; his accents - of African American and Asian American characters - were terrible. He took a bad book and made it worse.

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

Disappointment - if I had had anything else to listen to at the time, I wouldn't have wasted 10+ hours on this.

Any additional comments?

Please, better, more honest reviews; LISTEN to the book yourselves - this was so far below the usual Audible standards that I was astonished it got by.

Might have been better

I have never written a negative review before, but after about 15 minutes of listening to this story I had to stop. Just couldn't take the monotone, boring reader any longer. The story might well have been a good one, but if you can't stand the reader, what's the point. A masterpiece can be ruined by one.

Okay- not great

I was expecting a better story when I purchased this audiobook based on reviews I'd heard. The narration was fine, and the story was okay- but it was not as engaging or intriguing as I was hoping it would be. I liked it enough to finish it, and some parts of the story and characters were much more interesting than others.

Just below average

Great narration, but weak plot points. Decent story overall though. Main character's PoV was my favorite.

It was ok.

There were many parts of this story that made me feel as if I were being led around by my neck....To me, there were too many giant leaps for the characters to make and it seemed unrealistic. I just felt a little cheated by it.

Amazing book. Just amazing.

And I thought Dolan’s , “The Last Dead Girl” was great, and it was, but this is one of the best books I’ve ever read or listened to!!!