Dressed in Smoke

Detective Harlan Ulrich Series, Book 2

De: Ambrose Ibsen

Narrado por: Kyle Tait

A face from the past

Once upon a time, Jonathan West lost his best friend, Ansel, under horrific circumstances.

Or, at least, he thought he had.

On a warm summer night, he finds himself reunited with the dead man - and hunted by a hideous entity that occupies Ansel's body.

In his hour of need, Jonathan could have gone to the authorities, or hired an esteemed security service.

Instead, he winds up soliciting help from none other than Tanglewood's most curmudgeonly private eye.

Harlan Ulrich is on the case, for better or worse. The over-caffeinated eccentric will have to employ every tactic in his unorthodox playbook if he's to save the client - and himself.

©2021 Ambrose Ibsen (P)2022 Tantor

If your into snakes, this is for you

I personally cringe when hearing about snakes or reptiles, so take my review with a grain of salt, The characters are well established by this 2nd novel, and hoping for another novel like the first. I absolutely laughed out loud at the ending because SURELY he is not that naive but I get that some readers would surely believe that if sent to them, so I completely understand the jest of it. Hoping another novel is more like his first.

Fun read with great characters

I liked this book only slightly less than the first in the series. The characters are great but the story lagged in parts. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and was a little disappointed at the resolution. Fun read, though and I will definitely read the next in the series.

Loved it!

Action from the beginning and all the way through. Quirky new characters and a really interesting creature. I thought it was a fun listen!

Not His Best Work

This story was missing some of the moderate depth that Ibsen usually has in his creepy story lines and quirky characters. But what really caused me to first, laugh out loud (unintentional humor) and then, after a while, get irritated was the overuse of uncommon words. It's like he had a shiny new thesaurus and looked for a weird word for every other regular word. He used the phrase "quaff a tittle" when describing Ulrich smelling a bad smell during what should have been an intense scene and he wasn't trying to be funny. It was like that throughout the entire story. I hope he tosses the thesaurus and starts having his characters speak normally.

Not as good as the original Harlan Ulrich series

The new Harlan is somewhat boring, or maybe the narrator does not give Harlan the personality that made the first three books so much fun. I was mildly disappointed in book one, but gave this one a chance. It is ok, Just an average creature story, with a surprisingly stupid ending. Not to be a spoiler, I hope, but after ending the storyline, we get another insight into Harlans new character, and I seriously doubt I want to continue with this series if there is another book. I do enjoy Ambrose Ibsen most of the time.

To be continued ..

This is the 1st book by Ibsen that
1. I lost interest in parts and thus lost the storyline.
I had to relisten several times.
2. The ending just abruptly stopped the story.

Not Ibsens Best Work

I really enjoyed the first book and really like the main character. I don't care for lizard man creature or whatever it is. I would have enjoyed this more if it were possible for supernatural mystery and not a creature feature.

The narration is solid, no complaints there.

swallowed whole

My favorite of all Ibsen books. Perfectly creepy and suspenseful. I especially enjoy the main character's pension for fine coffee.

Disappointing

I have listened to so many of this author's books that I expected better. The narrator is very monotone and inconsistent with the voices for each character. At times the main character sounds like a whiny child, other times he sounds strong. In this reading, it was difficult to tell the difference between the main character and the "the client".

The writing was way to formal, and he consistently referred to the the client as "the client". Almost like he used that term as a placeholder while he decided what name to give the character. The formal writing and the overuse of words that are not typical in every day conversation, made it difficult to stay in the story. I liked the first book in this series, but after this one, I can see why there isn't a third.

Such a disappointment.

Intensely boring

I didn’t care for any of the characters, nor what happened to them. The pacing was sooooo slow and frankly, by the end I kinda was hoping the creature would ‘win’. It wasn’t horror or mystery or suspenseful or supernatural. Just boring. Not my cuppa tea.