Audiobook Review: A Fatal Winter by G. M. Malliet

by Carol4 Comments
  Title: A Fatal Winter (Max Tudor #2) Author: G. M. Malliet Reader: Michael Page Category: Mystery Audio published: October 30, 2012 by Dreamscape Media Rating: 3½ out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | IndieBound | Book Depository Last year, Agatha Award-winning author G. M. Malliet charmed mystery lovers, cozy fans, and Agatha Christie devotees with Wicked Autumn, the first mystery featuring her captivating protagonist, Max Tudor, and the small English village of Nether Monkslip.In A Fatal Winter, Max—Anglican priest, former MI5 agent, and village heartthrob—investigates two deaths at Chedrow Castle. But his growing attraction to Awena Owen complicates his case, as does the recent arrival at Chedrow Castle of a raucous group of long-lost, greedy relatives, any one of whom has a motive for murder. With a cozy setting, intricate puzzles, and a handsome (non-celibate) priest doing the sleuthing, the books in this series are destined to become instant classics in the mystery world. I think the blurb is a little overly optimistic. I just finished listening to A Fatal Winter and I listened to the...
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Audiobook Review: Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino

by Carol1 Comment
Title: Salvation of a Saint (Detective Galileo #2) Author:Keigo Higashino Translator: Alexander O. Smith Reader:  David Pittu Category: Mystery Audio published: October 2, 2012 by Macmillan Audio (First published 2008) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | IndieBound | Book Depository Yoshitaka, who was about to leave his marriage and his wife, is poisoned by arsenic-laced coffee and dies.  His wife, Ayane, is the logical suspect—except that she was hundreds of miles away when he was murdered. The lead detective, Tokyo Police Detective Kusanagi, is immediately smitten with her and refuses to believe that she could have had anything to do with the crime.  His assistant, Kaoru Utsumi, however, is convinced Ayane is guilty.  While Utsumi’s instincts tell her one thing, the facts of the case are another matter.  So she does what her boss has done for years when stymied—she calls upon Professor Manabu Yukawa. But even the brilliant mind of Dr. Yukawa has trouble with this one, and he must somehow find a way to solve an impossible murder and capture...
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Review: The Red Queen Dies by Frankie Y. Bailey

by Carol5 Comments
Title: The Red Queen Dies Author: Frankie Y. Bailey Category: Mystery Published: September 10, 2013 Rating: 2½ out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | IndieBound | Book Depository The year is 2019, and a drug used to treat soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder, nicknamed "Lullaby," has hit the streets. Swallowing a little pill erases traumatic memories, but what happens to a criminal trial when the star witness takes a pill and can't remember the crime? When two women are murdered in quick succession, biracial police detective Hannah McCabe is charged with solving the case. In spite of the advanced technology, including a city-wide surveillance program, a third woman is soon killed, and the police begin to suspect that a serial killer is on the loose. But the third victim, a Broadway actress known as “The Red Queen,” doesn’t fit the pattern set by the first two murders. With the late September heat sizzling, Detective Hannah McCabe and her colleagues on the police force have to race...
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Audiobook Review: Murder Song by Jon Cleary

Audiobook Review: Murder Song by Jon Cleary

by Carol2 Comments
Title: Murder Song (Scobie Malone #7) Author: Jon Cleary Reader: Shaun Grindell Category: Mystery Audio published: June 1, 2013 by AudioGo (First published 1990) Rating: 3½ out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | AudioGo A young woman named Mardi Jack is killed by a sniper's bullet in a Sydney apartment apparently owned by a wealthy businessman, Boru O'Brien, who has ties to seedy goings-on and to the Prime Minister's wife. O'Brien, the real target of the assassin, had been a cadet with Detective Inspector Scobie Malone two decades earlier, and after Jim Knoble, another police academy classmate, is also professionally shot, the mantle falls to Malone to investigate the case. Forced into hiding and afraid for the safety of his family, Malone must find a psychopathic serial killer before he, too, is stopped by a gun's explosion. Sometimes it can be difficult to review books in series, especially when they mostly fall along the same lines - good guy Malone has to solve a murder and it gets a little...
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Audiobook Review: Babylon South by Jon Cleary

Audiobook Review: Babylon South by Jon Cleary

by Carol2 Comments
Title: Babylon South (Scobie Malone #6) Author: Jon Cleary Reader: Shaun Grindell Category: Mystery Audio published: June 1, 2013 by AudioGo (First published 1990) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | AudioGo In 1966 Sir Walter Springfellow, head of Australian Intelligence, vanished mysteriously and without a trace. As a young constable, Scobie Malone investigated the disappearance. Twenty-one years later some bones are found up in the hills which are presumed to be Sir Walter's, and Detective Inspector Malone finds himself back on the case. His first task is to break the news to Venetia Springfellow, Sir Walter's glamorous widow, whose ruthless ambition has made the Springfellow Corporation a hugely successful company. Then comes news that there has been another death in the family, and one of the Springfellows is to be charged with murder. Police Commissioner John Leads turns out to have every reason for talking a close interest in the case, but emotional involvement results in his putting unfair pressure on Scobie Malone. Always a straight cop...
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Review: Pinot Envy by Edward Finstein

Review: Pinot Envy by Edward Finstein

by Carol1 Comment
Title: Pinot Envy Author: Edward Finstein Category: Mystery Published: July 16, 2013 by Bancroft Press Rating: 2½ out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository Meet Woody Robins, a bon vivant, devil-may-care wine guru who specializes in investigatory work involving rare artifacts of a vinous nature. Amidst the backdrop of world-famous Napa, California wine country, and upbeat, cosmopolitan “city by the bay” San Francisco, Woody finds he’s bitten off more than he can chew when hired by a wealthy grape grower to retrieve his stolen, rare, priceless, large bottle of red Burgundy that once belonged to the French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte. Tested by a colorful cast of characters, deceit, blackmail, intrigue, dealings with the mob and even murder ensue. With the help of his dozy boyhood chum, girlfriend, aunt and detective buddy with San Francisco’s finest, he eventually manages to unravel the case, but not before he learns a thing or two about himself. I don't know what necessarily makes a mystery good. Sometimes it's the...
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