The Burn

By: Kathleen Kent

Narrated by: Christie Moreau

Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's Summary

Rattled from a run-in with a cult and desperate for answers, Detective Betty Rhyzyk decides to go rogue - but her investigation leads straight into the dark underworld of the Dallas drug cartel.

There's not much that can make Detective Betty Rhyzyk flinch. But her wounds are still fresh from an encounter with an apocalyptic cult known as The Family, and she's having trouble readjusting to life as it once was. She's back at work as a narcotics detective, but something isn't right - at work, where someone has been assassinating confidential informants, or at home, where she struggles to connect with her loving wife, Jackie. To make matters worse, Betty's partner seems to be increasingly dependent on the prescription painkillers he was prescribed for the injuries he sustained rescuing her.

Forced into therapy, a desk assignment, and domestic bliss, Betty's at the point of breaking when she decides to go rogue, investigating her own department and chasing down phantom sightings of the cult leader who took her hostage. The chase will lead her to the dark heart of a drug cartel terrorizing Dallas, and straight to the crooked cops who plan to profit from it all. There's never a dull moment in Dallas, especially now that Detective Betty's back.

©2020 Kathleen Kent (P)2020 Mulholland Books

Critic Reviews

"Kent continues to reinvent and subvert traditional noir expectations with the larger-than-life, damaged, courageous Betty.... Action-driven mystery anchored by dynamic, deep characters." (Kirkus Reviews starred review)

"A gripping, powerfully human procedural" (Booklist)

View of the Narcotics Underworld

Katherine Kent carries us into a world we have not seen or experienced. Her masterful depiction of the underworld pulls us into places and characters we cannot imagine on our own. Weaving these characters, both good and evil together, we feel we are right in the heart of her story. MS Kent leaves us hanging by our fingernails with fear and yet manages to show us a soft compassionate side of this life. I would say this is a real page-turner but since it is an audible book I must say I sat in many grocery store parking lot, listening to how they will escape from these thrilling heart stopping situations! I do have one question. Why did she name this brash, brave, strong leading character Betty? (i.e. Betty White, Betty Boop). It seems to me she should have a strong boy / girl name like her partner Jackie, or Tracy, Parker, Rex.
Christie Moreau was excellent as the narrator. Her gritty voice brings to life Betty's pain, hate, fear, anguish, and even love. Clearly we are one with her - in her skin. Her change of voices pulls out the many character personalities which makes the story come alive. I especially like her portrayal of Dawn Rose and feel I can picture her perfectly. Her voice has full reins on our emotions, from sheer terror to tender, soft-spoken love.
I was captivated by both the author and the narrator and would highly recommend this book.

l love but

okay okay so this is the second book of the new series of a badass a Narcotics detective and I enjoy the second book. The second book open up beautifully it did have a slow start because the character is recovering I'm not going to spoil it and say what she's recovering from but she's recovering from what happened to her in book one now is first-person narrative so you're in the character's mindset of the of the book and so you with her through all her journey now one thing I caught on to this that I didn't catch on to the first book is in the first book you got the prologue in that prologue you know it was a past flashback.

and it was telling us about her first Contact As A Beat cop with a cult. the person that deals with Cults and I kind of gave you a premonition or for shearling of what the first book was going to be about dealing with cults the second book again does the same thing and gives us a foreshadowing of her childhood and we get a sense of what the book is going to be about and the prologue was about betrayal and I thought that was set up very well so once I caught on to that I got Shivers and from the first chapter it was nothing but non-stop for me


now here in order the book left us off with the covering character I can't remember her name at the moment but the character is at a point now at the end of the book where hopefully she's ready to tackle her trauma and try to get her life back she has a life kind of like now at the end of the book kind of set in the priorities that it was supposed to be set in I'm so I'm looking forward to the third book and I do got some not like stuff that took place in this book


okay for performance I did not like the performance I'm not going to the pier and ask her but she destroyed everything that the first narrator did the narrator in the first book set things up perfectly the uncle had his own voice when we were here him and her in the in the protagonist had he had his own voice shouldn't do that she kept a voice the same she didn't try to change the voice at all when we did probably would hear him which confused us would at least confuse me because I was so used to hearing his voice when the protagonist was thinking about him gave him his own voice so she didn't do that number two when it came to the male characters they all sounded like preteens.

like they haven't came into the room deep voice or high tone voice depend on the mail and they all sounded like preteens like her partner had an accident to his tone a slur to his tone in the first book he didn't have that here even the bad guys sounded with a light preteen tone in my opinion some of the women all sounded the same and the protagonist voice I had a it was a little bit deeper and it wasn't deep here it kind of sounded like a young girl it just didn't feel like the first book I don't know if she took the time out to listen to the first book to try to get an idea of what that particular are dead or just went off on her own experience as a narrator but she didn't do the books just as.

it took me in and out when I was stopped and really pay attention to the voices it would just knock me off if you're going and you're buying both book for the first time it's going to be an adjustment because you going to probably fall in love with the first book because of the narrator when you get into the second book is going to throw you off so I gave the performance of 3-star rating just because it wasn't the best it messed up the voices for me if there's a book 3 I hope that the author would try her best to get the first narrator that she had that did her first book because that person is a good job and.

I would like that person to come back and do the book 3 or any other books that is in the series because it works better her voice works better she sets the standard for the books and I will prefer her as the first person to read these books to come back and do the rest of them other than that I say before I gave the story itself a five-star because I deal of the storyline and yeah and I know an overall I gave you the five as well just because I did enjoy the story but the performance is this a 3 I'm sorry performance at 3 I should knock down to a two but I'm not going to