Inside Jobs

Tales from a Time of Quarantine

By: Ben H. Winters

Narrated by: Scott Aiello, Kevin T. Collins, Ellen Archer

Length: 2 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's Summary

Three offbeat stories of crime and conundrum, set in the present moment, from the New York Times best-selling, Edgar Award-winning author of Underground Airlines and The Last Policeman.

Inside Jobs: Tales from a Time of Quarantine includes:

"The Crimson Parrot"

It's not easy masterminding the crime of the century when your whole gang is working from home. A high-stakes tale of larceny, deception, and teleconferencing. 

"The Cape House"

As the world shifts around them, two estranged brothers end up in their childhood home. But it's the memories they unearth that will change them forever.

"Stop Motion"

With endless time on her hands, an apartment-bound young woman gets to all the hobbies she's neglected - martial arts, playing the sax, photography...and solving a murder? 

©2020 Ben H. Winters (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC

Modern fun.

I had a good laugh with this story. It’s definitely a unique time to be alive and these little Inside Jobs made me smile.
PS. Audible this months collection was wonderful. Thank you. For the last few months I passed on all of them. This month I got four.

Fanfic-level writing with Swiss cheese plots

There's more holes in these plots than Swiss cheese. Ben Winters writes with all of the grace of a fanfiction writer, committing writing faux pas left and right. The motifs in these three short stories are all stolen from writers who did it better in a full-length feature book/script. For example: Stop Motion's plot is literally just Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth's screenplay, Disturbia--but now with a gay murderer, so you know it's relevant. At best this design choice is tasteless and at worst it's offensive. Affirmative action doesn't count when you portray minorities as villains or criminals--only when they have redeeming qualities that ingratiate themselves to the reader.

The common flaw with all three of these short stories is that none of them actually address why everyone is on lockdown. These stories will be absolutely, incontrovertibly, irrelevant and dubious after the Covid-19 virus fades from memory. No one is going to pick up this audiobook and say "I have to know why these stories exist" because they are not titillating to the senses. And at no point does Ben Winters do anything beyond mouthing the words "quarantine." It's lazy story-telling.

Despite all of my disapproval of these stories, I have to say that The Cape House had the most potential out of all three. There was some good buildup here, and I actually wanted to know which brother was going to make a move first. But deus ex machina is not a good trope for horror. It's not a good trope period, but using it in a horror story just deflates the tension that you were pumping into your bouncy castle of suspense all story long. Ultimately I was left wanting in a way that our author could never redeem.

Honorable mentions: the reading was acceptable across the board. Scott Aiello stole the show with his spot-on Upstate East coast accents. Good on ya, Scott.

Very entertaining, especially during this pandemic

I really enjoyed the three stories, especially the first one. I even chuckled a few times listening to the story. The accents the narrator did for the first story were what made it really good. These stories were even better with being confined during this current pandemic. It makes you wonder if things like this are going on. Definitely worth listening to. Great characters and stories.

Entertaining

My favorite was the first story. I could totally imagine it. I spent a lot of time trying to find places to hide from family members. I mean, at first I was happy to have all the together time. Then it changed. Haha. I enjoyed the narrators. It was a fun listen.

Fun listens

Funny to be listening to stories from “quarantine time”. “Real time “. Some laugh out loud moments. A good distraction for a few hours. Thanks for the free listen Audible!

Mixed mystery/thriller collection

The Cape House kind of made my skin crawl, but The Crimson Parrot and Stop Motion were great, with that little touch of humor that always seems to make mysteries more realistic. Quarantine hasn't really bothered me, possibly because I always did go around with an audiobook playing through the earbuds so it just annoyed me anyway when actual people interrupted, but it's useful to hear about various other folks' reactions.

Free Audible Original

I gave it 4 stars since it was a free Audible Original. The first story sounds like a bumbling mobster caper as the scene starts with the gangsters trying to meet through a Zoom video call. The characters in the second story aren't well developed and therefore, not very interesting to follow along with. The third story had a little humor and a little suspense, so it wasn't bad.

short and sweet

In these times of lockdown. these short stories are simple, partially expected. and still enjoyed.

Crime in the time of quarantine

I normally am not a short story fan, but I found this collection delightful. Comically twisted, each story offers a different take on life under quarantine-from technologically challenged small-time criminals trying to figure out how to use zoom to the chance observations of a young woman finally taking up that hobby she’d always intended to get to. Thank you Audible!

interesting

A neat twist on the current events . Murders against the backdrop of the Corona virus epidemic .