A. Kiss

Not great, particularly bad for an audiobook

Revisado: 04-06-23

I have to admit I've been a bit lukewarm on this series from the beginning, The plots are OK with reasonable twists, and a bit gritty with not too much violence and gore, and I do like Robin, but I don't much enjoy all the time that is devoted to Strike's uncanny attraction and attractiveness to gorgeous women who are also pathologically needy and downright nasty. I'm also rather tired of the will they/won't they/come on already relationship between Strike and Robin, Strike's brilliance and general surliness, etc. Another pet peeve is the high-falutin' poetic quotations at the beginning of each chapter. Often there seems to be little relationship between the snatch of poetry and the story line in the chapter -- they mainly seem intended to demonstrate how well read and deep the author is.

It's amazing how many incredibly annoying characters "Galbraith" has managed to pack into this one book. So much spouting of ignorant polemics and so much uncontrollable sobbing... It would be bad enough reading their dialogue myself, but the narrator does a good job of capturing the voice of each character, which unfortunately just makes them even harder to bear. The other thing that makes this volume of the series particularly bad for listening is that large portions of it is in the form of Twitter and chatroom messages back and forth among people being read aloud, with the poor narrator having to read out each participant's "handle" in full every time he/she sends a message. Again, if I were reading the book myself I could skim over all this, but when read aloud it is extremely tedious. I finally gave up listening - couldn't take it anymore.

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I'm a fan but I think this is not his best

Revisado: 11-08-22

I've been a big fan of the series, and this is a fun listen as always. But I'm getting a bit fed up that the story lines have become so much the same... Andy's client always turns out to have been set up by some kind of international/organized crime conspiracy, and the turning point is always an attack on Andy and/or Laurie, which is foiled by Marcus.... a bit more variety would be nice. Also, as a dog lover as well as mystery lover, I always look forward to dogs playing a significant role in the story some way, but in this one the dogs are completely irrelevant to the plot. You can do better, Mr. Rosenfelt.

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Enjoyable read though maybe not her best

Revisado: 10-03-22

I've been a fan of Paige Shelton's Scottish Bookshop Mystery Series, and look forward to each new installment. This one was mostly the usual fun read, with a good story and reasonable twists, but I was disappointed with the lengthy, artificial-sounding exposition at the end.. The facts of the story should emerge more naturally, rather than being recited at the end by one of the characters just telling it all to other characters. It sort of sounded like she was under pressure to get the manuscript to the publisher and could only meet the deadline in this way...

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A somewhat fun send-up of police procedurals

Revisado: 05-12-22

I think Lynne Truss is a very good writer, and loved "Life at Absolute Zero" and "Eats, Shoots and Leaves." But she clearly had her tongue firmly lodged in her cheek when writing this one... it takes the tropes of the conventional "police procedural" murder mystery and takes them to absurd extremes just for fun (the moronic Chief Inspector who takes all the credit, the much smarter constable who is always showing him up behind the scenes, the unlikely villains, the well-placed coincidences, etc.). It is fun in its own way, but it's a bit like a bad pun -- the appropriate response seems to be a groan, rather than a laugh. I do have to say the killer's solution to "disempower" Constable Twitten at the end is very clever ('nuff said, no spoilers).

I'm guessing the others in the series are along the same lines. I'll probably try one or two, but chances are I'll get tired of the leg-pulling after a while.

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Nice writing, but confusing and disturbing

Revisado: 04-08-22

I am generally a fan of Lynne Truss and of cats so thought I'd give this a try. I guess I should have paid more attention to see that it listed under "Horror" subsection of literature. It didn't sound so bad from the description, but turned out to be horrific indeed and not to my taste. I guess I can't blame Truss for wanting to do something a bit different, but I will be more careful to read the fine print next time!

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Big fan, but the reader ruined it for me

Revisado: 12-20-20

I'm a long time fan of Alexander McCall Smith's books, and the Botswana series has always been a favorite because I lived in Southern Africa for a while. In the past, listening to Lisette Lecat's reading has abeen a bit part of the pleasure of these books for me. Unfortunately I can't say the same for Adjoa Andoh's reading of this latest volume. The straight narration part is OK but when she does the dialogue - particularly for the male characters - I found it downright painful to listen to. The accents are so exaggerated that they are just irritating. Charlie in particular sounds like a South Africa Bela Lugosi, doing a particularly bad Dracula. I was barely able to make it through this book -- if I see that Andoh is also the narrator for the next one, I probably won't buy it. I'm not going to put myself through this again.

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Very entertaining, endless plot twists

Revisado: 10-07-20

I'm a big reader of murder mysteries, and this one quickly became one of my favorites. It's so well plotted, with so many twists and red herrings, but also enough clues scattered along the way that you can pick up on if you read very carefully (or, like me, not pick them up until later when they're pointed out to you...). The characters are great, multidimensional, funny and smart and tender and flawed in endearing ways. It's a great setting for a murder mystery too. I just wish Cooper's Chase were real so I could move there.

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Liked the setting but not the plot

Revisado: 03-16-20

I was looking for a new mystery series and thought I try this one, particularly since I really have enjoyed the Tony Hillerman books, but I was disappointed. SPOILER ALERT - DON'T READ FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW...

Some of the characters were good and the insights into life on the modern day Rez were interesting, but I couldn't believe how long it took the so-called professionals to figure out the phone call thing. The moment I heard it I knew it was faked, so it was pretty frustrating when they all seemed so clueless. And I think the author actually messed it up, because it seemed clear that Artie's side of the conversation was meant to have been recorded when he was yelling about his mother's dole check, but during the "great revelation" it says Herbert faked Artie's voice for the recording. Did the author forget his own setup? The "whodunnit" part kind of comes out of nowhere also, particularly the "nobody done it" bit. Maybe I'll try one more of this series, but if it's similarly disappointing I will keep looking for that next series...

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Too much family, too little dog

Revisado: 11-23-19

OK, I know I'm going to sound churlish here, but I got the book for the story of how the dog got lost and found. I really didn't need the very long introductory section where we are getting to know the family in frankly more intimate detail than I felt I needed. Everyone's own family history and foibles are interesting and meaningful to himself, but not necessarily riveting for others. Once we got to the part about the dog disappearing and the efforts to find him I found it more interesting, although frankly it dragged a bit for me. Sorry, I know most people have found the book inspiring and beautiful, but I didn't.

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Big AMS fan, but a bit disappointed in this one

Revisado: 11-15-19

I knew this was a short book, so wasn't expecting the usual level of storyline, but even so I found it pretty simplistic. Frankly highly forgettable (sorry, AMS - usually I love your books, but I think you kind of tossed this one off).

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