Funeral for a Friend: A Jonathan Stride Novel

The Jonathan Stride Series, 10

By: Brian Freeman

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's Summary

“You’re safe, Stride. I found the body at the Deeps. I buried him.”

Jonathan Stride’s best friend, Steve Garske, makes a shocking deathbed confession: He protected Stride by covering up a murder. Hours later, the police dig up Steve’s yard and find a body with a bullet hole in its skull.

Stride is pretty sure he knows who it is. Seven years ago, an out-of-town reporter disappeared while investigating anonymous allegations of rape against a prominent politician. Back then, the police believed that the reporter drowned at a dangerous swimming hole called the Deeps...but the discovery of the body changes everything. Now Stride’s partner, Maggie Bei, is forced to ask Stride an uncomfortable question: Did you kill him?

Stride is obviously hiding things. He was the last person to see the reporter alive. And he admits lying to Maggie about that meeting but won’t tell her why. With suspicion in the murder pointing at him, Stride finds himself off the case and on leave from the Duluth Police.

His only ally in clearing his name is his wife, Serena, who retraces the reporter’s investigation into the explosive allegations. The clues all point to a hot Duluth summer years earlier that everyone in town would prefer to forget.

Someone was willing to kill rather than let those long-ago secrets come out, and the suspect with the strongest motive...is Stride.

©2020 Brian Freeman (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

Good Addition To The Series

Brian Freeman doesn't disappoint. I've read every Stride novel and each one is a carefully woven story with vivid characters. One would almost expect to see them on the streets of Duluth today. This story was amazing. You can't help but love Stride and the people around him for all their individual character strengths and flaws. Funeral for a Friend had me from the first pages with all the twists and turns and left me emotional at the end. I love how the experiences of Stride's past were interspersed yet you don't need to have read prior books in the series for it to make sense. Thank you for another epic story telling. I look forward to the next one.

Joe Barrett was good with the delivery of the story

Excellent as always!

Brian Freeman is my favorite author and Joe Barrett my favorite male narrator. Always a winning combination. The Jonathan Stride series gets better with each book! You'll love this one!

Funeral For A Friend

Just finished the series. Loved Stride! Joe Barrett is a fantastic narrator! The wholes series was awesome and I’m not a serious reader. I would love to have another Jonathan Stride mystery!

Bravo

Once again Brian Freeman has done a fabulous job! Funeral for a friend was a great listen! With all the sad there was still joy in the story. Cat has a stalker closer to her than anyone knows while Stride Serena and Braden all try to protect her. Doctor Steve’s bedside confession really hit Stride hard in this one. Once again everything going on in the story comes together so neatly at the end!! Joe Barrett once again does a wonderful job narrating

Love it!

This was a great story. I am not a big fan of Cat but I love Stride Maggie Serena and Gupo.

Really Enjoyed This Story

The characters were real and had depth. it was well written and well narrated. I highly recommend.

Disliked everything about this one

The narration can make or break a book, and the reading of this one was terrible. But even a stellar reading wouldn't have helped. The characters weren't remotely believable. And I think neither the author nor the narrator have met actual human women before.

love the stride series

Finished it 3 days. The story was great with some surprising twists but some predictable ones too. Overall, very much enjoyed

Average for this series

The recurring characters continue to be well developed in this most recent book in the series. Thank heavens for the character of Maggie, the rest of the characters seem to be in perpetual deep (i.e., depressive) thought.

The plot held my interest for the first 70%...then packs a lot of coincidences into the final part of the story.

The character of Kat, a 17 year old girl, leads the most “uncharmed” life one could imagine. She is in perpetual crisis, and her adventurism makes wonder woman seem like a slacker.

One predictable thing with this author: if any character is ever described as a political conservative, you can bet they will be completely evil. That does become tiresome.

Love the series

I used 3 months to finish all Jonathan Stride series from 2005 to date. I love the author always has a quick turnaround and surprise at the very end. But what makes the series and the book special are the emotional growth of Jonathan Stride and people around him. It’s not just a detective novel that focusing on solving crime but also about a person growing out of pain of loss and understanding love.