Truth Catcher

A Novel

By: Anna Salter

Narrated by: Dara Brown

Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

Forensic psychologist Breeze Copens has a gift. She not only hears the truth, she also sees it. So she knows when Daryl Collins-a born-again but remorseless con jailed in Seattle for armed robbery-is lying. What she doesn't know is the identity of the little girl in a blue dress with yellow daisies who appears suddenly in her line of vision during her interview with Daryl. And Daryl isn't telling.

A heart-stopping thriller, its twists unexpected, its suspense mounting as the steely Breeze attempts to make hard evidence of her intuition, Truth Catcher sets the leggy, red-haired forensic expert on an increasingly treacherous course. It takes her eventually to Dallas, where she falls headfirst into the investigation of an unsolved murder of a four-year-old girl (in a blue dress with yellow daisies) a decade earlier. More dangerously, it puts her in the path of Daryl's half-brother, a creepy drug lord who goes by the name of Trash.

©2006 Anna Salter (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Fascinating.... Handles this touchy material with integrity, tugging on our hearts even as she ties our nerves in knots. Salter writes with chilling authority." (Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review)

"Salter has graced her protagonist with a compelling and likeable voice in the tradition of Patricia Cornwell." ( Library Journal)

"An impressive achievement." (Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune)

Greatfiction based in truth of trauma survivors

Narrator kept me interested and good reading. This was fiction written with an understanding of how traumatized those battered or the children witnessing it can be. Kudos, Anna Salter. We need to read some more education in fiction and happy endings.

Awful reading distracts from story

N.B. This review concerns mostly the audible edition.

I would love to be able to review the book in detail, but now I know the plot and ending without being able to tell if the writing is just bad or if the reader is so horrific that she ruined a decent book. It's a run of the mill detective story told by a non-detective, in this case a forensic psychologist, that is overly floral in language far too often but the story is OK. My biggest gripe is the over acting that infuses the entire text with drippingly-sweet lilting voice on every word. Often sounding like a braggart when using technical language, which no psychologist would ever do; the reader stresses the wrong words or point sometimes and sounds like she's reading at Children's Hour via your local crappiest library. The entire story sounds like the reader is patronizing to listeners, and worse, the characters. She reminds me of some particularly bad news reporters who fake sincerity when reporting tragedy. I honestly can't review the book because the reading was so bad. This isn't the first time an Audible Production has featured particularly bad reading, but it is the first time I have made it through the book before giving up in aggravation. I'd say that gives decent marks for holding my attention enough that I willingly endured such a bad read. If Audible/Amazon doesn't start improving, I'll be going back to just text again or only buying audiobooks from the publisher.