Ruff Cut

By: Kasey Riley

Narrated by: Thomas Block

Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's Summary

Army veteran Sheriff Megan Holloway has a lot on her mind: a dog with a belly full of smuggled diamonds, a terrified woman hiding at the Bailey’s Boarding House, and a mafioso who is likely connected to both. What's that city crook doing in her town, anyway?

She saw Aaron, the man in her life, flirting with another woman. Maybe he's begun looking for someone with less emotional baggage. Wondering if she can be what he needs, Megan knows she's ready to try.

Add to that, she relived her personal nightmare of the war in Afghanistan, again. Calling in the proper government agencies, Megan manipulates them, keeping control of the investigation in the background. Fortunately, she has an ace-in-the-hole the Feds don't.

Megan sets up a sting playing on the city crook's fear of snakes. The trap should be easy to spring, if she can just keep the Feds from interfering. The ranching town of Riverview is the backdrop, where your neighbors are your friends and can be counted on to help when times get tough, or dangerous.

©2017 Kimberly Grant aka Kasey Riley (P)2018 Kimberly Grant aka Kasey Riley

Fire the Narrator

This is book one of a new series about a female sheriff in a small town. Sheriff Megan Holloway is an Army veteran who was wounded in Afghanistan. She finds an injured dog and takes it to the veterinarian. They discover the dog has a stomach full of diamonds.

The book is well written. It is a combination mystery story and canine story. The plot is diverse; the characters are interesting and realistic. The author managed to grab my attention at the beginning and keep it throughout the book. This is a fun easy to read story. I am looking forward to book two of the series.

The book is seven hours and twenty minutes. Thomas Block does a poor job narrating the book. Block is a full-time audiobook narrator. I think I would prefer a female narrator to match the female protagonist. I am not sure if it is just me, but I found Block’s rhythm of reading annoying. He also dragged out a word every so many words to the point I was about ready to quit reading the book. I more or less solved the problem by increasing the narration speed in the Audible app. I would like to following the series as I find the protagonist interesting; but, if they keep the same narrator or he continues the same method of narrating, I will have to past on listening to this series.

Horrible narration

This might be a good story but I can't get passed the narrator. His voice droned on and on and was simply annoying. The lead character is a woman. Why couldn't a woman be used for the narration? I returned it.

Terrible narration

I cannot review the story, only narration. This is the first book I have not been able to listen to. The narrator’s voice drones with no inflection, and his women’s voice is like baby talk. Does he really perceive women as baby-talking whiners?

Strange Narration

I listen to literally hundreds of audiobooks & have for as long as Audible (& others) have been available. I also use Kindle read aloud feature when I am at home. Narration by TTS has greatly improved but still manages to have a mechanical quality & some amusing pronunciation errors. Performance readers generally enhance the production & make it easy to “get into” the story.

That is why it is a big shock to try to listen to this particular book. Even with training in speech pathology, I find it hard to describe the spoken style in this production. The reader has a very flat intonation & droning cadence that makes TTS sound dynamic by comparison. Pronunciation is adequate & unaccented, but speech is largely monotone. When he does change inflection, it it at some odd place in the word or phrase & entirely unnatural to normal human speech. I was interested in the plot so endured to the end, but the delivery was so distracting that it was difficult to get caught up in the story. This was especially amusing during what was meant to be steamy sex only to become about as engaging as watching tapioca thicken...

I admit to having difficulty listening to productions narrated by readers with strong accents (& avoid those even if the plot is intriguing), but that is my problem & I don’t criticize narration in those situations. That is not the issue in this case. I strongly recommend that anyone considering this book listen to a preview & decide if they can endure it to the end. This book would be better if it was read by someone with more typical speech patterns.

THE PERFECT COMPANION FOR A ROAD TRIP

It's a six-and-a-half-hour drive from Durango to Denver and I didn't want to be there in the first place, but you know how those command performances are on holidays. My sister-in-law is a true friend and she gave me a Christmas gift that took the pain out of the arduous journey back to the city. Yes, it was the audiobook version of Ruff Cut. It's seven hours and twenty minutes long so not only was I totally engrossed in the story as I drove home, I had to know "what happened" because the bad guys were just about to get outsmarted by the gutsy, female sheriff just as I pulled into my driveway...so yeah, I ended up sitting in the car listening for another fifteen minutes or so LOL. It's not the first time that's happened but it doesn't happen often because, all too often, plots are predictable and you can already guess how it's all going to turn out. Not here! Kasey Riley rolls out the surprises and keeps 'em coming; the bad guys "aren't from around here" and they're no match for ex-Iraq veteran and sheriff of Riverview, Megan Holloway. Her mission now is to keep her town and the townspeople she's come to love safe, and no one is going to mess with her. Speaking of love, there's also a "love interest" in the story and you'll find yourself rooting for Aaron. Megan doesn't realize how much she cares for him until she almost loses him. If the blurb giving you a synopsis isn't enough to convince you to buy this audiobook, the picture of the dog on the cover surely will as he's clearly a major player in the plot. As a Colorado native, I especially enjoyed reading about the town of Riverview, set in the state's high desert. The author's understanding of the terrain, small-town living, ranch life and police procedure bring this mystery to life. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and look forward to listening to another Kasey Riley mystery on my next road trip.