Dr. O

By: Glenn Hale, Robert W. Walker

Narrated by: David M. Winograd

Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's Summary

Dr. Maurice Ovierto was proud of his handiwork. He removed his little trophies with great care from his victims, wrapped them in surgical gauze and sent them by Express Mail only. Human flesh was much too delicate for regular mail....

He wanted them to arrive in good condition for FBI Inspector Donna Thorpe. She alone understood his special talents, despite the pigs she worked with. He'd killed her partner to make her notice his genius, Now, it was time for her family. Soon Dr. O would have his greatest triumph: Her pain.

©2010 Robert W. Walker (P)2014 Robert W. Walker

It just wasn’t what I had expected

This was a difficult one to review.

While the narrator, David Winograd, was pretty good for the male characters and especially suitable for the evil Dr O, his female voices were almost painful to listen to. I think I would have preferred just his normal speaking voice for the women. As it was, the female characters sounded as if they were all totally batty. It made me cringe, and I actually stopped listening several times because of it.

From the book blurb, I was expecting a sound serial killer versus FBI story. That’s what I got to a certain degree, and I enjoyed parts of the story. BUT, the plot and the characters were so over the top, I ended up not taking any of it serious anymore. It just turned into some comical satire.

Dr. Maurice Ovierto, who likes to remove particular body parts of his victims to send to his nemesis, FBI agent Donna Thorpe, at times dresses up in women’s clothing and make up, eludes capture in spectacular fashion over and over again and makes the police and FBI look utterly clueless.

FBI inspector Donna Thorpe apparently loves her husband and kids, but she also had a thing going with her FBI partner, of course, who was then killed by Dr O (of course). Then she gets another copper killed by involving him in the hunt for Dr O, and to top it off, she then starts a lesbian relationship with the dead policeman’s former partner. I didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or cringe when I got to the sex scene.

At that stage, I decided to do a bit of Internet stalking and came across a comment by the author that he had indeed meant this as a tongue in cheek parody when he was having issues with his publisher. Wish somebody had mentioned that in the book blurb!

It just wasn’t what I had expected. However, if you like larger-than-life action and far-fetched FBI versus serial killer encounters with plenty of dead bodies, you may enjoy this. Personally, the best bits were the ones were the author killed off characters that I never expected he would kill. So there was some unpredictability, and if you take it as a lighthearted parody instead of a serious thriller, it was ok.

Audiobook provided for review by the narrator.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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This narrator is awful

This was one of my favorite thrillers. Read it back in the 90s. Completely destroyed by the awful narration. I don’t claim to be an authority and I don’t wish this narrator ill will, but this is not his calling, at least not for this novel. A woman should be narrating. ANYONE else should be narrating. So slow. I had to bump it to 1.5 speed just to make it sound normal. Please redo this great story with someone else behind the mic.

Dr. O

What did you love best about Dr. O?

I didn't love this book.It was good.Well written,just a bit violent for me.

What does David M. Winograd bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

David Winograd was perfect for the Doctor in this book.He does a great male voice.His female voices make me cringe though.lol

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No,neither

Any additional comments?

This was a good book.I'm not sure I'd recommend it,since it was so bloody.The narrator,David Winograd,was a perfect match for the Doctor and mens voices.His ladies voices always sound like your smoking 70 year old aunt though.lol The story was good,maybe a bit long.The ending was the best.