Damage Control

A Novel

By: Denise Hamilton

Narrated by: Vanessa Hart

Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

Maggie Silver does her best to scramble up the ladder at an exclusive, high-powered PR firm in Southern California whose clients are movie stars and famous athletes. She is asked to take on her toughest client yet: Senator Henry Paxton, distinguished statesman from Southern California, who also happens to be the father of Anabelle, Maggie’s best friend in high school. Senator Paxton’s young female aide has been found murdered, and it is up to Maggie to run damage control and prevent the scandal from growing.

Thrown back into the Paxtons’ glamorous world, Maggie is unexpectedly flooded with memories from the stormy years in high school, when her friendship with Anabelle was dramatically severed after a tragedy that neither of them has been able to forget. As Maggie gets further embroiled in the lives of the Paxtons, she realizes that the ties of her old friendship are stronger than she thinks.

Riveting and suspenseful, Damage Control examines our craving for celebrity and spectacle and how far the bonds of friendship can stretch before they break forever.

©2011 Denise Hamilton (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Denise Hamilton scores her largest and greatest triumph: Damage Control is a great mystery and, much more rarely, a superb psychological thriller. Kudos to this brilliant talent.” (James Ellroy)

Horrible Narrator.

The story is very good but the narrator is horrible. Her voice had such bad intonation I frequently had to stop listening even though I was at a good part. I would love to listen to this story again but with a different narrator.

Terrific Story!

I have to say that this was one of those cases where I actually welcomed traffic just so I could keep listening. I can't wait for this author's next novel! The characters are great and the plot is absolutely gripping. Yes, the narrator was probably a bad casting choice -- the main character is hooked on amphetamines and this narrator sounds like she's just taken a muscle relaxant; however, it does not ruin the experience by any means. I would definitely recommend it!

Poor narration does affect a book

I have to agree with the previous review on the poor quality of the narration. The reader sounded as if she has downed a quart of whiskey with her two packs of smokes a day for years. She did seem to even out over the course of the book, but she is particularly irritating in the beginning. My advice is to soldier on because the story is terrific with many unexpected twists in the plot. This is one of the rare instances where I will recommend listening to this book despite the narration.

LA Lady Maggie asks who do I trust? Will I survive this?

This who-done-it has well fleshed out characters. Swept along, I felt like I was heroine Maggie--- a bit naive, skeptical, soft hearted, desperate and unsure but persistent. This story is rich and has depth even making me laugh. I did have difficulty suspending my disbelief for every plot twist--- but most of if it felt plausible if not vividly real. The performance reading was splendid.

Speed up narration

Any additional comments?

The reviews warned of dislike of narration and I understood upon listening. This just isn't a story that plays well with a slow paced, dreamy sort of narration. Using the audible playback speed control in the app to speed up the narration to 1.25X really made a difference for me. The voice was a bit bubbly yet not to distraction. The story is certainly worth the listen.