Rebbe Don Justino

Disappointed

Revisado: 12-31-24

Such potential… but so heavy handed and didactic. It’s best when it’s following the lines drawn by Twain.

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There’s a third alt-hist noir thriller!

Revisado: 03-12-24

I’m not even done with it and it’s already one of my favorite books. It joins Fatherland by Robert Harris and the Yiddish policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon in this very very small canon of Nir detective thrillers set in alternative histories.

I love how the author keeps dribbling out just enough detail to help understand the story. In a noir police procedural with a detective who’s part Native American — and in which larger political questions about control of Alaska loom! — he owes Chabon some kind of explicit nod to Berko Shemets and Meyer Landsman. Maybe it’s there but I missed it, or maybe I haven’t heard it yet.

The readers voice is just right. He does a wide variety of accents, possibly well, including Boston Brahmin, which isn’t easy!

If I have any complaints so far, it’s only that the audiobook should include maps of this fictional city and fictional world. I know they exist because I was able to find them by downloading a free sample of the Kindle book.

I’ll be buying a physical copy of this one sooner or later. Thanks!!

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So good! And unexpected

Revisado: 02-27-23

Just stick with it! It keeps getting better and better. They were smart to have multiple voices reading. That makes it even more interesting.

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Exceptional voice acting

Revisado: 12-13-22

Truly, Robin Miles just became my new favorite voice actor (she even makes me want to listen to the closing credits!). She can do so many different accents (even multilayered ones) so convincingly it’s amazing.
I also love the clever way they’ve used sound engineering to lend depth to the story.
Yes, the writing is a little didactic but the politics don’t bother me (most would assume I’m White and male), but my only gripe is that Jemisin is such a good writer she could easily have built just a little more racial/class/gender/power complexity into her critique.
Best of all, the whole thing nails that New York experience (that I sometimes miss, having lived there a long time ago).

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Good stupid fun

Revisado: 08-15-22

I love the way they have built an audiobook within the audiobook And cleverly messed with the format as if it’s a radio play. Good times!

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Brilliant rendition of a great novella

Revisado: 08-10-22

This is one of my all-time favorite WWII stories — for the desperate action, the heartbreaking loneliness and vulnerability of the leader, and the brilliant way he free-associates verses from the scriptures.
The reader does a brilliant job pulling off American, English, and Canadian voices. It’s a shame that at a climactic moment as this beleaguered convoy finally reaches safety, the reader accidentally reverses the American accent of Krause with the British accent of Diamond. But still, very fine work.

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The ingredients are there but…meh

Revisado: 07-06-22

As we’re starting out, it seems to check all the boxes for a good noir mystery thriller.
But as we get into the dénouement there are too many fairy-tale characters and situations where the actual people in power just had no such scruples. I willingly suspended disbelief as long as I could. This just doesn’t work. The reader is very good though.

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This is my new favorite noir thriller

Revisado: 04-16-22

If, like me, you dig a good parody of the noir mystery genre by turning it into sci-fi/alternative history, such as Fatherland by Robert Harris, or The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon, then you’ll dig it too.

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Glad she skips the gore.

Revisado: 04-11-22

The author could have given lots of gory details of the killing, but it works better this way, with just enough detail to make clear what happened - it brings out the horror much more effectively.
It’s not easy to do an authentic Rhode Island accent, so I’m glad the voice narrator doesn’t try and get it wrong.
Good read!

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New England is not the south

Revisado: 10-25-21

I’m enjoying the trilogy pretty well — it’s not Winter’s best — that would be Underground Airlines — but one detail keeps irking me: the reader isn’t doing a very good job of concealing his southern accent. It’s jarring in a story that takes place in southern New Hampshire. It’s hard to replicate that New Hampshire Yankee accent but it shouldn’t be hard to be careful with those long “I” sounds.

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