The Great Smoky Mountains are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and though I’ve never been there, the photos I’ve seen are just gorgeous. It’s an area of gorgeous scenery, wild creatures, trails, festivals, and music. It’s also the setting for Wayne Zurl’s series featuring Prospect, Tennessee’s Police Chief, Sam Jenkins.

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Great Smoky Mountain Bank RobberyTitle: The Great Smoky Mountain Bank Job (Sam Jenkins Mystery)

Author: Wayne Zurl

Read by: David Colacci

Category: Mystery- Police Procedural

Audio published: July 28, 2012 by Mind Wings Audio

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Purchase: Amazon MP3 

Sam Jenkins’ law enforcement colleagues know he’s quick to ask a professional favor. But when a beautiful Treasury agent asks for his assistance, he balks. Special Agent Lucy Frobisher wants Sam to re-open a forty-three year old investigation and find her father’s killers. Reluctantly, the ex-New York detective turned Tennessee police chief delves into the robbery-homicide and finds himself back-tracking events in the 1960s, chasing down a group of anti-government Anarchists who robbed banks to finance their violent revolution.

I’ve read a few of Zurl’s full-length Sam Jenkins mysteries, but this is the first short one I’ve listened too. At only an hour, it was quick, but I have to say that David Colacci’s voice was very close to the voice of Sam I had in my head. I like Sam. He’s amusing, charming, dedicated, a good guy. In The Great Smoky Bank Job he’s doing a favor for a friend, because it just so happens that he and his wife went to school with one of the suspects in the robbery. It takes a little digging, but Sam pulls through. I like that he asks for his wife’s help on this one. She quite a lady herself, and the two of them have some perfect dialogue.

Spending an hour with Sam and his friends is a nice diversion for a walk or doing some chores. I enjoy the full-length stories better, but I’ll listen to another one of these when I need a short audio break.

Sam Jenkins Series – in chronological order

Novels

  1. A New Prospect
  2. A Leprechaun’s Lament
  3. Heroes and Lovers

Novelettes

  1. A Labor Day Murder
  2. By the Horns of a Cow
  3. Serpents and Scoundrels
  4. Murder in a Wish-Book House
  5. A Murder in Knoxville
  6. A Fire and Old Ice
  7. Bullets Off-Broadway
  8. Scrap Metal and Murder
  9. Reenacting a Murder
  10. V is for Vitamin?
  11. Fate of a Floozy
  12. The Great Smoky Mountain Bank Job
  13. Hurricane Blow

Coming Soon

  1. The Butlers Did It
  2. Gypsies, Tramps, and ThievesJob

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