The Dime

By: Kathleen Kent

Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell

Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's Summary

Brooklyn's toughest female detective takes on Dallas - and neither is ready for the fight.

Dallas, Texas is not for the faint of heart. Good thing for Betty Rhyzyk, she's from a family of take-no-prisoners Brooklyn police detectives. But her Big Apple wisdom will only get her so far when she relocates to The Big D, where Mexican drug cartels and cult leaders, deadbeat skells and society wives all battle for sunbaked turf.

Betty is as tough as the best of them, but she's deeply shaken when her first investigation goes sideways. Battling a group of unruly subordinates, a persistent stalker, a formidable criminal organization, and an unsupportive girlfriend, the unbreakable detective Betty Rhyzyk may be reaching her limit.

Combining the colorful pyrotechnics of Breaking Bad with the best of the gritty crime genre, The Dime is Kathleen Kent's brilliant mystery debut and the launch of a sensational new series.

©2017 Kathleen Kent (P)2017 Hachette Audio

Critic Reviews

"Gritty and gripping, explosive and emotional, Kathleen Kent's The Dime grabs you from its opening scene and never lets go. Kent tears off the glossy facade of Dallas to show us a dark underbelly of crime. A great start from an exciting new series." (Jeff Abbott, New York Times best-selling author of The First Order)

"I loved The Dime. Betty is my hero. Smart, determined, and so unique. The writing is as smooth as Texas spring water and the story grabs you by the throat and drags you happily through a briar patch of surprise and excitement and leaves you exhausted under the Dallas skyline. More please!" (Joe R. Lansdale, author of Honky Tonk Samurai)

"Smart, gritty, and populated by a rogue's gallery of unforgettable characters, The Dime is relentless. As it races full-bore its way toward a climax that's truly creepy, the best you can do is hang on - and it's a hell of a ride." (Kelly Braffet, author of Save Yourself)

Texas accents?

Overall, the book was a good read, but I found the narrators Texas accents, and male voices really unpleasant and perhaps campy? Not sure what a real Texan would say, but those were not pleasant to listen to!

3 stars. Generous

Listened on audible. Good narration. Lousy story. Made the main character like superwoman. To far fetched

Good Story, Unfortunate Narration

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would suggest people read the book instead. It's a great debut novel, very Chandler-esque. The setting in Dallas is very well done, with just a few geographic missteps. However, the Texas setting is not matched by Ms. Farrell's narration, which butchers Texas place names and gets just about every single Texas accent completely, painfully, distractingly wrong.

Homophobic Dallas, Horrible Narration

I live in Dallas. Based on the number of times blatant gay bashing wss exhibited, the novel could have bern set decades ago.

Story was ok, but certainly not original.

I understood she was tall with red hair the 20th time I was told - didn't need the 21st.

Worst narration ever.

I should have known better

I almost never like plots that revolve around drugs, but this time I didn’t give that enough weight. I do like strong women as protagonists, and gave this the benefit of the doubt because of that.

Problems:
The body count was ridiculous. Where was the media/online hysteria? Even in Texas, surely, this amount of slaughter isn’t so routine the media would ignore it.
The tenor of the book felt very Hollywood grade B movie, or TV cop show. If you loved Miami Vice, you might like this book; I detested Miami Vice. As I said, I should have known better.
Every character, including Betty and her wife, is a stereotype personified.
Why on earth female detectives, especially those written by female authors, MUST be targeted personally and be put through torture and/or a campaign of terror (in this case both) is beyond me, but it seems to be virtually obligatory these days, and this is no exception. Making the book predictable and, for me, not enjoyable.
Betty’s character is written inconsistently. Is she exceptionally tough, or very frightened but controlling it? Respects her colleagues, or automatically assumes they are all a$$holes?
The narration went from mediocre but ok to seriously interfering with the story for me. Some narrators make a book more enjoyable, some detract. This one detracted from a book that already wasn’t strong. Her male voices were terrible. Most of them sounded like they were straining on the toilet or holding in a lungful of smoke or something. She often rendered a male voice in a sort of weird falsetto. It was as if she decided to give the more obnoxious male characters more obnoxious voices. Others have noted her poor attempts at Texas accents; to my northwestern ear, they sounded generically southern, and poorly done at that. Her voice for Betty was ok—the narrator’s natural voice is pleasant and she reads without sounding like she’s reading—but the wife’s was SO soft and gentle and feminized it felt stereotypical to me.

The flow of the writing was ok, and the book did hold my attention for the first two- thirds, at which point I skipped to the end, listened to that, and decided not to listen to the rest, and Audible has decided to make it harder for me to “exchange” books, so I probably won’t. But I definitely won’t get the sequel, either.

Super boring

Extremely boring story that never gets going. I kept hoping the story would. start, but never came together.

Summer Mystery

I heard about this book on NPR and it was recommended as a unique summer mystery. While the central character is a strong and intelligent female, the other female characters are not. For the reader, this perpetuates the notion that women don't support or relate well with one another. The male characters are underdeveloped and because they are simplistic, they become caricatures.

GLUED!!

completely gripping and definitely worth the read! the only area this book fell short was the authors' impersonation of the other characters, sounding loosely like a washed up reba mcentire. other than that this book completely sucked me In with hours of enjoyment!

i love this books

I love this book from the moment I read her the first page of the opening of the book I just see this character in my head and I was she at 1 me over or her first page I love the police procedure that's in this book I felt like I was watching a TV show that's dedicated to a police show I love her character loved the first person there that we do get from her with her for the whole entire time we are thoughts or where we struggled I love her connection that.

she has with her Uncle the connection she has with her girlfriends Uncle the connection she has with the people around her in her time in Dallas I don't live in Dallas and probably will never do but I do love the fact that Dallas itself is a part of this book it is a character in itself from the Heat to everything else from the buildings I felt like you know if you haven't been to Dallas you this is the closest you probably going to get through this book so I really did enjoy that



2 I did use the storyline of four out of five in the reason why not because it was a bad story but because this is a first person so it was lacking in the fact that her girlfriend to me still felt like a stranger the Little things that we did get was sweet but I still felt like okay I need to know more about her girlfriend like what to feed how she acts when she's at work what's her struggles with her words with her thoughts at the way her family treats the person that she's madly in love with and.

I just felt disconnected from the woman that our character has come to love so if I have to say anything for the second book I would love to have an Insight on her life I know it's before I read this book I know read the commenting on other people who read it and one of the comments that from wherever you go to get your information with that was Amazon site or looking it up online for views or even this site for example most everybody was saying. that her wife was pretty much a didn't care she was unlikable I didn't get that she didn't care about the main character.

I can't think of her name right now I think I didn't get that from the first point of view I knew that the character love her girlfriend. and I got the feeling from her point of view that it was returned but because we're not in that particular characters my said I felt disconnected from her cuz I don't no hurry so that was my only down play and I probably said all this and so many many many words but I apologize for that but that was the downplay for me as far as the story everything else was great.



3 I guess I'm third part of being in the first person I really enjoyed her connection with the officers that she works with special like her partner I would like to know more about him I feel like from her point of view it's hard trying to dive into other characters when you doing first person's point of view is hard to again same thing with wife really getting into characters around her because this is a first-person story through her eyes but all in all I did love her partner even the ones that were asses I felt like it was genuinely not force because she was gay or anything like that if everything fit it wasn't.

there issues with her was because she was a woman and she gay but it didn't she didn't like make it all about that you know she's still a new cop in the new city and she has to earn the respect so on top of all that they do have a problem with her being a woman in that she's gay that is a issue but I felt like the gay topic really wasn't this make it a big deal like a lot of writers probably would have made it but it's issues that the character must face as well in her life and are the things that she has to deal with being who she is so I did enjoy her time with people in this book.


4 now the initial plot I enjoyed it the cult thing was freaky as hell I was really worried that she was going to turning the whole get rape situation I thought was going to happen in the story but it didn't even know it was threatened a couple of times not trying too much away on the plot of the book cuz I don't want to spoil it for anyone but but if you like me and you don't like reading story with rape in it don't have to worry about this one.

I do plan on picking this up for book2 hopefully when the book comes out it also comes out on Audible so it'll be easy for me to pick up I prefer reading my books or I should say listen to my books as much as I possibly can due to my disability and everything like that about this amazing book if you like police procedure and investigation check would like badass, and, tall as Amazon, women, that remind you of Xena. for the most part sometimes check, who has a beautiful girlfriend check I really want to know more about this girl so I should say wife I really want to be get to know her personality a lot more so that's my only hope for the second book.

it's a good first book you know is worth it I was worth the credit it's is long and is it has Rich history the character comes from a rich history and it's worth it. I hope that is plenty more books to come in the series I'm for the ride to see how long and how far this character goes so yeah I'm all for more books

it's okay

struggled to be interesting all the way to the end. Most of the characters were to shallow.