TK

Great characters but a convoluted story

Revisado: 10-01-21

The premise of this story is fantastic and the characters are nicely fleshed out but the story is so overly complicated that it takes all the fun out of listening to it.

It starts out fine, drug cartels, stolen drug money, secret compartments on boats. All fairly logical and straight forward but then it just goes completely off the rails.

Spoiler Warning

For some reason the author decided to include a government conspiracy with a shady group of federally authorized drug dealers that have few issues with killing people, except for when the plot doesn’t want them to because story reasons.

Throw in a “bad cop” who is actually a “good guy” cliche just to add another “mystery” subplot and try to make sense of a story.

There are just so many moving parts to this that it made it a slog to listen to. I found myself skipping the whole history of the government agency every time it was brought up because it just didn’t make any sense and kept changing how much influence they had. It just repeated itself several times and really served no purpose for the story. The whole thing could have been a simple drug cartel and would have saved hundreds of words of exposition. I would have much rather that time spent talking about the interesting characters the author creates.

The reader is okay, just some weird pauses and inflections at certain places.

Overall, great characters and an interesting premise but the story really needed to be simplified.

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A 9 hour book that felt like 20

Revisado: 02-23-21

A paint by numbers cozy mystery in desperate need of an editor.

There really feels like there is nothing original in this story at all and the author received a letter from the publisher saying “This is what sells follow the checklist”.

On top of that, the main character isn’t likable and is not very interesting. At several points in the book, she talks with a side character and I found myself going “I wish I were listening to that persons story instead of this one.” It doesn’t help that the narration of the character seems to vary from unenthusiastic to straight up whiny Emo at very strange parts of the story.

The other issue is the need of an editor. This is a 9-hour story that could be told in 6 if it were edited properly. An example would be the main character and her friend go shopping for her job, this is fine when you use it for character building or plot points but this was literally “we bought stuff, the sales person was enthusiastic”, then they bought more stuff from the same sales person, and then finally we get our plot point at a different store. There are several incidents like this and it just makes the story drag.

Overall, I just wouldn’t recommend this book.

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Always good to start small

Revisado: 01-27-21

A great collection of the early Poirot short stories excellently preformed and very well paced.

There’s really not much to say about this one, the stories are typical Christie and a great way to get to know Poirot and all of his eccentricities.

Armstrong’s performance gives life to the characters and makes the story feel more like a radio play than an audio book.

Definitely recommended for mystery fans and those who had never read any of the Poirot series.

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Cute but predictable

Revisado: 10-06-20

Not bad but not Sofie Kelly’s best work.

The biggest problem with this book in the series is that it’s incredibly predictable. Kelly is normally very good with keeping you guessing with the whodunnit side of things but a little strange or boring with the side stories. This is the opposite.

The Who, how and why are very easy to figure out. Yet the side stories were fairly entertaining and funny. Per usual, the characters were interesting and funny and the narration by Cassandra Campbell was on point.

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Another Good Addition But...

Revisado: 01-15-20

Another great whodunit by Delaney.

The author has great characters and shows that they are evolving and growing, keeping the stories from being too stagnant. Again, Gemma, the main character can be a little grating if you are expecting a perky cozy mystery lead but I’d still recommend this book to anyone.

The mystery itself isn’t all that original, but the execution with the unique twists and turns make the experience feel fresh.

Kim Hicks performance however, was somewhat lacking this time around however. Especially in the opening chapters, the main character sounds like she should be in her mid-fifties, not her early thirties. It makes me think that Hicks had a cold while recording certain parts of the book.

There’s also an issue with two of the male characters sounding very similar, which took me out of the story when they would have group conversations and I was questioning who said a particular line of dialog.

A great listen for mystery fans and especially fans of Sherlock Holmes.

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A great read, but only for some

Revisado: 12-05-19

This is one of those books that you will either love or hate. Personally, I couldn’t put it down.

Looking at the reviews of this book, they seem to be scattered all over the map and I can understand why, even if I don’t agree with some of the opinions.

This book feels like it was written by a real Sherlock fan which can be good or a bad thing depending on your point of view.

Delany does a great job of creating a Sherlockian character without actually using The Great Detective himself. She is observant, detail oriented and very matter-of-fact. She uses abductive reason to come up with solutions and is fairly knowledgeable and intelligent. She also has no filter and lacks social skills. As a result, she can also be very crass and standoffish. She’s also not above lying or using deceit to achieve her goal.

I think this is the lynchpin of whether a reader will like the book or not; because the main character is not very associable. But I don’t think she was supposed to be.

The author obviously wanted to create her own version of Sherlock, which I think she succeeded in doing better than most. If you’ve read the original Holmes canon, you’ll understand what I mean. Holmes himself also lacked a filter, often proclaiming things in a crass manner. On learning of the Copernican Theory from Watson he replies that “Now that I know it, I shall do the best to forget it!” And basically tells Watson that it’s completely useless information to him.

So to that extent, I think the author succeeded. But I also think this may turn a lot of readers away, especially since most Cozy Mystery heroines are nice, cheerful and get along with nearly everyone in the community. Gemma isn’t quite the exact opposite of that, but she’s close.

As for the mystery itself, it’s fairly well structured. With a nice tie into the history of the stories of Conan Doyle. The twist at the end is both poignant and makes perfect sense once explained.

All of the supporting cast are likable and contributes to the story, no one seems to be taking up lines just for the sake of it.

There are a couple writing issues. Like having a supporting character and a background character having the same name but nothing that takes away from the overall story.

Another nice touch to this series is that the author cites other, real Sherlock contemporary novels. As the protagonist owns a bookstore it makes sense and helps to make a more immersive story. It’s also a nice way to learn about other books to read. Though this happens more often in later novels in the series.

Overall, I would recommend this book to Sherlock fans and mystery fans that can handle a slightly abrasive protagonist.

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Rushed story but an okay distraction.

Revisado: 12-05-19

An interesting world but the story needs some help with timing.

This is one of the stories that feels either lazy or over-edited. I’m leaning towards the latter as what is there does actually feel like there was effort put into it.

The premise is a simple, Harry Potter/magic school anime story that adds enough of a twist to be its own thing.

The problem that this story has is that the author doesn’t take a lot of time establishing the school and characters to make it feel real despite it being magical like Hogwarts or Luna Nova; which doesn’t mean there wasn’t an attempt. The first half of the book goes into a lot of detail about who runs the school how students are selected, but then doesn’t go into any detail as to the classes or the other students outside of the main characters’ respective cliques.

For example, in Harry Potter, JK Rowling’s description of Transfiguration class goes through a progression of what they do; matchsticks changed into needles to start with but by the end of the year they progressed to something more difficult. In this story, day one was transforming into your animal. Which is a good start, but at the end of the semester that’s still what they are doing, just “better” despite the professor telling them they would be doing other things. So this tell don’t shoe approach gives no sense of a progression of time.

As for the students, there are other students in the school, but no one has a personality aside from the protagonist and her two friends. Everyone else falls into generic cliches, screwup but tries hard guy, bubbly happy girl, mean kid, tough guy and hot mysterious guy. It really detracts from the idea this is a real school because none of the students feel real.

The other issue is that the last hour or so of the book feels so rushed that it made me wonder if I had accidentally bought the abridged version. After taking their time talking about the school and the protagonist and her friends, it was like the author suddenly realized their deadline was approaching or (and this is my guess) their editor said they needed to cut out sections of the story to meet publisher page count restrictions. Literally the story goes from “end of first day of school” to “establish threat” to “several weeks later I found my powers” to “being attacked” to “months later the term ended” all in the last hour and a half of the story with a ton of exposition at the end. It’s really a shame because up until the end of the first day, it was a pretty interesting and fairly well put together story.

The main character has a personality, very believable self doubt, and though she’s pretty ignorant of the magical world and the school, she’s given a reason to be ignorant which surprisingly is not the usual “didn’t know about the magical community” cliche.

Her friends are interesting and serve as a good foil for her without being bland while allowing a little leeway for explanation of the world and how the magic works to the reader.

The world itself is fairly interesting and gives a good reason for the evil threat to exist and isn’t the usual “evil power wants to take over the magical and non-magical world” and their plight is a very believable one.

The narrator does a pretty good job of keeping the main characters distinct though the Side characters tend to lack the same distinction. Generic Girl A sounds like Generic Girl B etc. which isn’t that important but adds to the feeling that there are only 6 students at the school.

Overall, I think I’d recommend this one only if you were a fan of the magical school genre and wanted a story that is fun but doesn’t have a lot of depth to it. I will probably pick up the sequel at some point, but I’m not in a rush to do that just yet.

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Below average cozy mystery chart book

Revisado: 11-15-19

I picked this up in the BOGO sale and really wish I had chosen something else for free.

So this is a pretty below average mystery that lacks any creativity and really was tough to get through. The author seemed to have had a checklist of what goes into a cozy mystery and you could almost see them going through it. Middle-ages female protagonist; check, fluffy animal; check, quirky best friend/relative; check, other woman the protagonist doesn’t like; check, hot cop who thinks the protagonist might be a killer but the two will eventually fall in love despite knowing nothing about each other; check.

The addition of the supernatural seems like an afterthought; like the author already had a mystery written but was told to add a twist by their publisher. It really adds nothing to the plot and if it were left out completely nothing would be lost with a minor tweak to the ending.

The mystery itself is predictable that you can figure out who did it by Chapter 3. The ghost’s clues are really unnecessary and the protagonist begins to look stupid after a while for pursuing a suspect despite everyone, including herself (twice), telling her she should look elsewhere. There’s also a major plot hole in the story that is actually brought up in the epilogue but is never addressed, it’s just glossed over at rapid speed.

Speaking of speedy, the narrator either needed some coaching or a better editor. The book is read at such a rapid pace that it’s hard to tell what was said and by which character. There were a few times where I found myself having to rewind the book just to understand the dialog.

Overall, this is not one that I would recommend. The mystery is cookie cutter, the main character is beyond dense and the supernatural element may as well have edited out. Combine that with a narrator that is reading like she’s double-parked and it makes for a not so enjoyable audiobook.

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A great introspective on missions that went fubar

Revisado: 08-17-19

An incredibly informative series of lectures told in an engaging and competent manner.

This was a very enlightening course covering military battles from the ancient Greeks to World War II and explaining how they are relevant to modern warfare.

The lecturer really knows how to get your attention with an approach that makes each lecture feel more like a story unfolding as opposed to a professor teaching. Yet he manages to summarize what went wrong with each strategy and how it could have been improved in a clear and concise manner that makes it easy to remember his lessons.

Overall, if you are looking to learn a little bit about some military royal screw ups and how you can avoid doing the same thing, pick up this course.

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A super plot foiled by poor writing

Revisado: 08-16-19

This started off with a great, though slightly cliched idea. A masked and caped vigilante is attacking drug dealers, tying them up and staging them to look like comic book panels.

Enter MG, is a writer who works on said comic book. She recognizes the panel and blurts out how it looks like her comic. It just so happens that she is standing next to the police officer in charge of the investigation! What a twist!

Plot convenience aside, what follows is a straight dive into geek culture with lots of references to keep all the nerds happy and add a dash of comedy to what actually turns out to be a pretty good story. There are lots of great plot elements, a tie in with a murder and a 30 year old drug bust.

Unfortunately, that’s where the writing just starts to kill the enjoyment faster than the Joker at open mic night.

Firstly, all the main characters are introduced with a massive information dump, throwing more exposition at you than an origin issue.

Here’s this guy! He’s my best friend and hairdresser, he also does drag, he has fights with another drag queen all the time, I make his costumes, he may have a brooding past secret but he didn’t tell me so I have to guess, oh wait he’s revealing said past secret.

All this right as you meet the main characters. Except for the cop, his information dump happens about halfway through the story.

This really does take away from the storytelling when you don’t really get to learn about the characters organically, instead of getting them as what feels like a lifeless D&D character sheet.

It also affects the mystery. There are several suspects in the book, which is important to keep a reader guessing, but these are so obviously red herrings that they may as well have gills and need Aquaman to translate for them.
This is because they don’t get a massive information dump at their introduction or that they are behaving so menacing and suspicious that Fred would wrongfully accuse them on Scooby-doo.

The other issue with the mystery are the clues. In things like Sherlock or Castle, clues are there but they are subtle. That way, when everything is revealed at the end of the story you can go back and see how everything ties together. These clues are not only easier to figure out than The Riddler’s riddles but are also repeated at least twice, sometimes within the same paragraph.

Lastly is the main characters have more issues that a comic book store.

MG, our lead female protagonist comes across as an idiot towards the middle to end of the book. There is a difference between withholding evidence to protect your friends and withholding evidence that could save your life and your friends’ lives. Know the difference!

Apparently MG does not, so at multi-points in the story she acquired evidence that could help the investigation and keep herself and her friends safe but doesn’t turn the evidence over to her cop boyfriend. Instead, she pulls her best Nancy Drew and starts doing things on her own. The real breaking point was when they have a key piece that would be as easy as pulling an old police report but it’s never addressed and they face life threatening peril. The excuse given, repeatedly, is that there is a dirty cop involved in the investigation. Though that excuse holds about as much water as a fan-theory explaining why Ash Ketchum doesn’t age. This whole scenario is actually addressed at the end of the story when the cop/boyfriend asks “You didn’t trust me” and no real explanation is given.

Then again, the cop/boyfriend seems to have about as much common sense as Jayne from Firefly and doesn’t even get a cool hat to wear. He knows there is a leak on his team, and, instead of doing the smart thing of compartmentalizing information to determine who the leak is, just goes about his daily business. At one point even states that he just showed the entire team his evidence which lead to MGs problems.

The voice acting is okay, with the exception of three of the male characters all sounding the same and there’s enough funny pop culture references to fill San Diego Comic-Con. (Not that they are hard to insert into writing.) I really wanted this book to turn out well because it could be an interesting series but all I can say is, leave this one mint in the box.

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