Death and White Diamonds

By: Jeff Markowitz

Narrated by: Foster Cooper

Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

Did you ever have one of those days? You know the kind when nothing seems to go right?

Richie's girlfriend suggests a romantic getaway, promising him a weekend he will never forget. So why can't he remember what happened when he finds her lifeless body on the beach?

Richie is fairly certain he didn't kill his girlfriend, but his memory is hazy. One thing, however, is clear. When Lorraine's body is found, he's going to be the prime suspect in a murder investigation.

If her body is found.

Disposing of the body turns out to be harder than Richie could have imagined. Losing it, however, is easy.

Did you ever have one of those days? And we haven't even gotten to the bad part yet.

©2014 Jeff Markowitz (P)2015 Jeff Markowitz

Great story!

Jeff has written a great-planned, well-thought out novel. I enjoyed it from beginning to end.
I found myself engrossed in the characters while I rooted for and against each one in turn.
I'm glad to say I've heard my first Audio book and proud to say it was Death and White Diamonds.

A really BAD body day

This is one of the best books with some of the nastiest main characters I’ve read in a long time. If you are looking for sympathetic characters, don’t look here! But the author tells the story from both sides, the criminals (and there a whole slew of them) and the police, and never misses a step. Watching the police untangle this snarl was the most enjoyable part of this book for me. The writing is very good, with the occasional stunning image or turn of phrase, and the characters are excellently developed, and stay true to type (the main character is essentially one of the most irresponsible, self-indulgent, self-absorbed characters who have ever had temporary residence in my mind, and when I finished the book, I felt like I needed a thorough mind cleansing. In other words, whatever you think of the characters, the author presented them in ways that worked, if only (thank all that’s wonderful) in fiction.

The narrator has a very pleasing reading voice, and gave a professional performance, though there were a few mispronunciations and at least one repeated phrase, so I hope that this fine small press gives more attention to the technical aspects of narration.

I received this book in exchange for this unbiased review via the kind courtesy of the publisher.

Not a fan.

I need to start by saying that I was unable to finish this story. With DNF's I tend to leave a 3-star no matter what.

Anyway, I always feel weird with DNF's when I see that other reviewers were able to finish and loved the story to boot. I think the biggest problem I had was the fact it was so unrealistic. Like the story is in a realistic setting with realistic people; there’s nothing supernatural or magical in any way happening in the story, yet the main character repeatedly does stuff that just doesn’t make sense, or is realistic. I just had a hard time getting past that. He doesn’t want the police to think he killed his girlfriend (even though they’re not really dating) but thinks it’s better to essentially destroy her body to hide it. What was with him tasting her blood exactly? Or masturbating to her corpse? Then one by one, he comes across people who might realize something weird is going on and decides to kill them too. Keep in mind, he’s not a killer though. Obviously, he has some mental health issues happening. While others might have thought that a great concept or whatever, I wasn’t one of them. I kept seeing comments relating to the story being funny. I would consider myself to have a pretty good sense of humor but the parts I listened to, I didn’t hear anything remotely funny.

There was some questionable writing, for example, “Lorraine was too much large.” Or when Richie was fighting the crone/old lady on the dock, the reader learns “I tried to smash her.” I don’t even know what that was in reference to. Or when Richie talked to Peg on the phone: “I’ll be out sick for a couple of three days at least.” Or when he put the barrel into his car, it said “He wrestles the barrels (plural) into the trunk…” He had only taken one barrel; the other three were delivered.

There was also a lot of repetition, again not a fan. For example, “I rolled it [barrel] over to the cellar door and bumped the BARREL step by step down the flight of STAIRS. I left the BARREL at the bottom of the STAIRS and stopped to catch my breath. I climbed the STAIRS and walked down the hall…” Or “I nudged the first BARREL onto its side and rolled the BARREL to the cellar door. Bumping the BARRELS down the stairs. It was hard maintaining control of the heavy oak BARREL.” There it went from singular to plural to singular again with the barrel/s and the narrator repeated those lines as well. This next line was just questionable and had me wondering if the author used it on purpose: “Even if the police find the bodies in the barrels in the basement of the beach house.”

Overall, I think the narrator did a pretty good job. I would recommend more practice though. While he did a variety of voices for the individual characters, the narrative part (telling the story) of being a narrator needs work, in my opinion. As in it was obvious he was reading and not just telling a story. Other than that, the pauses between the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next were way too long! There were issues with the volume randomly getting louder or quieter at times and then the overemphasis of certain words.

Questions/Comments:

The massage woman doesn’t really speak English except to say $40. Yet after his first massage, she does talk some. I can’t remember what it was she said, but it was in English, yet Richie doesn’t comment about that fact. Then after he gets his second massage, again he repeats how she doesn’t speak English.

So prior to John and his friend stealing Richie’s car, they were just out walking around…in the middle of the night…with beer…in the middle of nowhere? I had a hard time wrapping my brain around that scene.

What was with changing the POV from first person to third person when it went from Richie to John? I don’t really get why the author wouldn’t have stayed with first-person and just started the chapter with “Chapter… John.”

Why did Ed, the delivery guy, not wonder why Richie was walking around the beach house with the fire poker?


I received a free audiobook copy in exchange for an honest review.

2 degrees of separation

I received a free code for this book.
Really enjoyed this story. Lesson in not to panic, and how we are all woven into one web. Great read, Recommend it

It Died

Mystery, murder, a body, blackmail & a sting set up.

Warning, language & sexual situations.

Sorry, I just couldn't get lost in this story at all. The narrator & his voices for different characters just killed it for me. He just forced it & way over did the efforts for changing his pitch & such for certain characters.
Such as Billy, it was so whiny & extremely annoying!! I couldn't keep listening when he spoke. To bad Billy wasn't the body at the very start of the book.

The narrator did repeat at least one time, though that I would think is the editors fault & not the narrators. He mispronounced a few words as well, which again the editor should have caught.

The ending kind of leaves you a bit hanging, in my opinion. I expected a bit more possibilities for the ending.

Sorry, but honestly no I can't recommend the narrator.
Nor could I recommend this book.

This book was given to me for free and I am providing this honest review voluntarily.

Just because someone is given a free book it should NOT be expected of you to give a great review, no matter what their real opinion. I will always give my honest opinion, but remember it also comes down to your own personal taste. So, just because I did not care for a story, author or narrator does not mean you won't care for it either. It's just my personal opinion.

Umm. Yeah. Idk.

•audiobook•
Content Warning should have reflected: Sex, Language, Violence
Only Violence was noted on AudiobookBoom

I usually avoid the trio of warnings ...and wouldn’t have asked for the audiobook to review had it been disclosed. Add to this our main Character, Richie tells his POV in first person, but we jump to third person with other characters. I know this is becoming a thing now, but I dislike it.

Whenever I could get past the things I disliked, I was able to chuckle and wonder how this would end.

Parts were disjointed. Like how he said the ferry was closed but then waited later that night to cross? Time sequence is out of sorts too. Maybe I’m looking for a cohesive story in a weird dark comedy horror book.

I had never heard of this author or narrator. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t my taste. Perhaps the tags for stories are for a good reason ...