Ready to Fumble

The Worst Detective Ever, Book 1

By: Christy Barritt

Narrated by: Patricia Santomasso

Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

I'm not really a private detective. I just play one on TV.

Joey Darling, better known to the world as Raven Remington, detective extraordinaire, is trying to separate herself from her invincible alter ego. She played the spunky character for five years on the hit TV show Relentless, which catapulted her to fame and into the role of Hollywood's sweetheart.

When her marriage falls apart, her finances dwindle to nothing, and her father disappears, Joey finds herself on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, trying to piece her life back together away from the limelight. A woman finds Raven - er, Joey - and insists on hiring her fictional counterpart to find a missing boyfriend. When someone begins staging crime scenes to match an episode of Relentless, Joey has no choice but to get involved.

Joey's bumbling sleuthing abilities have her butting heads with Detective Jackson Sullivan and kindling sparks with thrill-seeking neighbor Zane Oakley. Can Joey channel her inner Raven and unearth whodunit before she ends up totally done in? And where is her father anyway? Can she handle fame, or is disappearing into obscurity the wiser option?

©2017 Christy Barritt (P)2017 Christy Barritt

Great Cozy Mystery

Loved the Book. Loved the narration. Great Cozy mystery. Kept me guessing. Not a thriller, which I liked. Good for passing the time.

HOME RUN!

had mystery, drama, romance and suspense. the narration was INCREDIBLE- I was sad it was over. a must read.

So Good!

I loved the story so much. Barritt (author) has created an engaging world I never want to leave. The characters are truly interesting and I just want to know more. The narrator is top notch! I forget that it is one person performing; the characters are differentiated very well in an entertaining performance. Her reading style matched the main character spectacularly! I will totally listen again and problem continue listening to the rest of the series.

Loved it!

I have listened to many audio books and I loved this! I really enjoyed the book series when I read it, (hoping for more soon 😊) and when I had a chance to listen to it - I was thrilled! However, this narrator was amazing! I loved the book even more! I made several people listen to parts while I was enjoying it 😊

This Book Is Not Good

I wanted to like this, but it is bad. It’s not the most egregious I’ve ever read, because somehow everyone besides the main character is kind of likable, or at least inoffensive. And it’s not like some books that actually make you angry at how terrible they are. But this is not good at all. The main character is kind of stupid, over and over and over. Almost nothing happens. The things that do happen aren’t exciting, or scary, or surprising, or funny. They just...happen. There really aren’t any stakes, or many clues. There are some very cliched parts, and there are some very aggravating parts.

Unfavorable reviews are difficult to write without spoilers, so SPOILER ALERT - SPOILERS AHEAD (Not that any of them matter in the slightest)

The main character has a stalker in Hollywood, before she moves to the East coast. When she thinks she sees her stalker in her new town, she doesn’t go tell the police, even though there’s already been a murder. When she does bring it up and says she had a restraining order against him, she doesn’t know if it expired or not. How would you not know that? Someone has threatened her, then there’s a scene where she’s all “I should have turned the lights on outside where it’s dark, before I take the trash cans out. Oh, well, it will only take a minute”. Yes, there is someone waiting for her in the dark. She keeps saying things to herself like “I can’t ruin another person” yet she has never ruined anyone, so what is she talking about? She takes a sketchy call at night to go meet a stranger. She takes another call from someone else possibly involved in the murder and goes to meet them. She is always knocking things over or dropping things. She’s always nervous and her hands are shaking just walking into church. What the? Why? Her Hollywood reputation was ruined because of her physically abusive ex husband, yet she allows the media and everyone else to think she’s a crazy diva, instead of telling the world he was a wife beater! He should be the one ruined, and be in jail, yet the author actually wrote that some things were meant to be private. WHAT?

She also came to town to find her father, who has “disappeared” and when she sees the police guy she’s kind of befriended has a file on him and his disappearance, she never once asks him about it, or what he might know. It was infuriating! She says throughout the book that she doesn’t think she can trust the cops regarding her father’s disappearance, but the author never gives one reason why this might be so. And whether or not she trusts the cop about her father, she has no problem feeling electricity between the cop and herself. And her next door neighbor and herself. She tells us a million times she doesn’t need a man, and is constantly talking about the men and her possible attraction to them. It’s all so, so stupid.

I was shocked to find this author has written many books. I figured this was someone’s first effort, and that they should definitely stick to their day job. But nope. Someone actually pays this woman to write, and apparently people actually buy her books. Amazing.