Kristin

Good story but the denouement is rushed

Revisado: 11-17-23

I love this author and this story is well-performed by the narrators. However, this felt like a story written to deadline with the author running out of time at the end. The early parts, setting up the characters’ back stories, is expansive and detailed. But when the author tries to bring the pieces together, it is rushed and quite unbelievable. There are the elements of a great book here, and had the author invested more in building out the ending, it would have been 5 stars.

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Twisty but charming mystery

Revisado: 12-29-22

I really love this series; it is full of surprises, great relationships among the characters and authentic moments of humor and sadness. Great narrator, a fun listen.

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A long slog with an unbelievable and unsatisfying ending

Revisado: 10-21-19

Tana French writes beautiful prose. Her characters are well-drawn and flawed, but typically likable or at least relatable. This book was a departure: still beautiful prose, but excessive and mostly spent wallowing in the unreliable and self-absorbed mind of the protagonist. I got through the book, which has a mostly loathsome cast of supporting characters, believing that there would be growth or some satisfying end, but it never came. In fact, the ending just left me perplexed as it was both unbelievable and without any meaningful conclusion. Tana French needed a much better editor on this one.

The narrator was overall fine, but the whiny tone of the protagonist made me cringe as did his airy/vapid version of Melissa.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Perfect storm of absolute awfulness

Revisado: 03-26-18

I kept listening to this in hopes that it would live up to the reviews, but it is predictable and just awful. The protagonist is completely unlikable. The narrator is whiny at the best of times and actually braying through most of it. And really, if the story is not insufferable enough, just listen to the author interview to hear his millennial angst. Skip this one for sure.

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I loved the first 2/3s, but that ending?

Revisado: 04-19-17

Loved the beginning of the story, thought the middle dragged, wanted to smack the protagonist many times for stupidity and then came to the end and was was baffled by the total unreality of it. Would not recommend.

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The best Maeve Kerrigan yet

Revisado: 06-02-16

I binge listened to this title and really enjoyed it; I could have done with slightly less pining over her ex-boyfriend, but Maeve seemed to professionally come into her own, showing confidence that was lacking in prior titles and the fire plot had enough twists and turns to keep me guessing. The narrator does a good job tackling many voices and accents and was an enhancement to the story. I'm already waiting for the next in the series!

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esto le resultó útil a 7 personas

A lot of recycled plot points...

Revisado: 04-07-16

This was the least original of any of MHC's works--in fact, it was weirdly similar to one she wrote a few years ago--spouse with early onset dementia murdered, caregiver spouse blamed (it was the reverse in her prior book) and a thief in the house that night that has new information. So it was predictable, been written before (but clearly by someone else as this had a distinctly different/more modern voice). Jan Maxwell was fine as the narrator and it was entertaining enough, but overall, It felt like something I'd heard before.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

was gripping, but a little weird

Revisado: 11-18-15

Tana French writes beautifully. Her prose is descriptive and elegant and her mysteries are all character-driven. Maybe it was that several characters were teenage girls or maybe it was that she gets on a tangent of magical realism that is typical of her books,
but just didn't work here, but I ended up dropping this midway through and having to come back to it. I am glad that I did because once she moved away from that angle, the story was strong and I couldn't stop listening.

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Engrossing: well-written and well-read

Revisado: 04-22-15

I really enjoyed this book; it was predictable in terms of the culprit, but the structure of the book with changing narrators worked well in creating a suspenseful denouement and strong character creation. The narrator is excellent. Can't wait for the next in the series!

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esto le resultó útil a 9 personas

Disappointing story, wrong narrator

Revisado: 11-06-12

This was a poor continuation to the Bailey Weggins series. I don't recall Bailey being vapid, shallow, desperate or stupid, but in the years since her last appearance, she seems to have lost both her confidence and her common sense and was far more concerned with her dysfunctional relationship and if she would spend the holidays alone than with solving the mystery or self-preservation. There were several very obvious traps that she walked into haplessly and clear clues that she completely missed. By the end, I was actually hoping she would get Darwined out because her stupidity was so painful. Plot had promise but just limped along and supporting cast was underdeveloped and so it was actually really hard to care whodunit.

This particular narrator was not the right choice for the series. While her delivery was fine, her voice has a gravelly, more mature quality that came off like a grandma talking dirty which was very disconcerting. She is better suited to Murder, She Wrote than Cosmo.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas