Remains Silent

De: Michael M. Baden, Linda Kenney

Narrado por: Michele Santopietro

From Michael Baden (former New York City chief medical examiner, chief forensic pathologist for the New York State Police and for the U.S. Congress investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and host of the hit HBO series Autopsy) and Linda Kenney (civil rights attorney and guest legal commentator on Court TV, CNN, and MSNBC), a masterful debut crime novel–the first in a stunning new series in contemporary suspense–that brilliantly mines the worlds of forensic science and law and introduces an irresistible crime-fighting team.
Philomena “Manny” Manfreda is a crusading attorney for the disenfranchised. Five years out of law school, with an apartment not much bigger than one of her beloved Prada shoe boxes and a burgeoning reputation as one of the city’s fiercest litigators, Manny is an unabashed shopaholic who changes her hair color weekly, carries her poodle, Mycroft, everywhere, and whose idea of therapy is the preparation of an eight-course Italian meal.

Dr. Jake Rosen is the deputy chief medical examiner of New York City, a confirmed workaholic and bachelor who lives alone in an oversized nineteenth-century Manhattan brownstone littered with morbid memorabilia and forensic artifacts, and who divides his life between the autopsy table and Chinese takeout.

When a body is unearthed beneath the construction site of a mall near the Catskill Mountains, Jake is called to the scene by his elderly mentor, Dr. Pete Harrigan, to examine the bones. Further investigation reveals a gruesome discovery: additional skeletal remains with striking abnormalities. After one of the victims is identified, the family of the deceased retains Manny to represent them, and, with Jake, she is swept into a terrifying vortex of murder and deceit, where a mounting body count hides both a shocking cover-up and a devastating love story.

A chilling debut that introduces a major new voice in crime fiction.©2005 Michael Baden and Linda Kenney; (P)2005 Random House, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Wonderfully done…Baden and Kenney are formidable, and Remains Silent sparkles.”–Patricia Cornwell“A chilling book that will keep even the most sophisticated reader guessing unitl the very last page . . . Readers will be enlightened and captivated by this book that makes CSI and NYPD Blue look like child’s play.”–Ann Rule“Bullets, bones, and baffling bodies. From corpus delicti to habeas corpus, Baden and Kenney are the real thing. They know murder, and it shows!” –Kathy Reichs“A killer combination. The crime scene, the morgue, the courtroom–nobody knows these places better than Baden and Kenney. They tell a chilling story, full of authentic detail and delicious personal entanglements. Dead men may not tell tales, but these two experts are off to a brilliant start.”–Linda Fairstein “Over the years I’ve sat in many a courtroom–for the Claus von Bulow and the O.J. Simpson trials among many others–where Michael Baden, in his role as medical examiner and forensic expert, has held me spellbound with his riveting testimony about a murder victim’s cause of death. Now Baden and his wife, Linda Kenney, an acclaimed civil rights attorney, have written a page-turner of a novel, with scenes set in morgues and during autopsies, about a forensic pathologist and litigator’s quest to solve a crime, that is tough, taut, highly entertaining, and even romantic.”–Dominick Dunne“Baden and Kenney have given us the best wise-cracking, crime-fighting couple since Nick and Nora Charles. From the courtroom to the crime scene, a nonstop thriller by real pros in the world of crime and justice. I can’t wait for the next installment!”–Catherine Crier“Dr. Michael Baden, revered as our nation’s foremost medical examiner, teams up with his bride, Linda Kenney, a tenacious litigator, and together they pen a riveting, fast-paced debut novel. The tempestuous nature of this drama takes the reader on a journey into the interstices of our justice system enmeshed in a resounding, triumphant struggle that is enormously entertaining, enlightening and satisfying. Remains Silent is an heroic effort worthy of its authors’ profound expertise.”–Robert K. Tanenbaum

Irritating Reader

I too found the reader annoying. The way she kept droping her voice made it hard to hear in these spots. The story itself was ok, but the reader could have been a lot better.

Nothing special

It's ok, is the best I can say. I like Manny - but I'm a fashionista, so the Prada references kept me interested.... Nice twist at the end, but.... all in all nothing special.

Could have been better

I actually liked the book and the characters. They were different from the usual. However the narrator irritated me. She wasn't really a "narrator" but a reader. She made no attempt to change voices for the characters and this made it hard to follow who was speaking most of the time. If there are more books to come in this series, I hope another narrator will be chosen.

Poor reading

The plot of this book is reasonably interesting, except for a ridiculous Deus Ex Machina ending. The main problem is in the reader; she seems to have no ability to change her intonation or accent. As a result, when reading a conversation between a man and a woman, it's impossible to tell who is speaking. This detracts considerably from one's appreciation.

Cheetos for the mind

Had high hopes for the forensics - but just too formulaic to engage me. Protagonist is rather obsessed with designer shoes/clothes and just too precious for words; this works in "The Ivy Chronicles" as character development, but here it is just annoying and shallow. (Hint: lists of clothing and shoes tell us more about the character of the author than they do the protagonist.) The stock characters are all here: the scruffy ME, the sweet old farm couple, the evil developer, the corrupt sheriff, the ambitious attorney, the drag queen sidekick, the secret government conspiracies...
I finished it as it was the only book on my player that day, but I felt a little guilty.
The interview with the authors at the end was more interesting than the book, actually.