The Rag and Bone Trade by Robert Cormier

Ethically demented, seriously ambitious police detective brutalizes innocent, unthinking little boy. Heartwrenching. A must for prosecutors.

19 Years of Reviews

CLEVER, hip, femme-politik story about lovably lost fbi anti-type and girl mountain climber fight Systemic corruption. Swell characterization; plot just short of really believable. Kyle is getting better all the time.Free Fall by Kyle Mills read by Michael Kramer

Imagine a Cobbled Court Quilt Shop. A Blue Bean Bakery. A For the Love of Lavender Herbal Boutique. Farms, handiwork, handicraft, prudent, helpful, hardware-toting neighbors, dainty small town gossip, happy volunteers, lavender soap: the fantasmatic drift of post-Madoff sub-urban female regret. What does a pretty pacified community look like whenThreading the Needle by Marie Bostwick read by Hilary Huber, Bernadette Dunne

Publisher: Chivers North America,Pub Date: p2000.The Pushcart War between elevator operators and rich prick fathers with beautiful daughters. CRAZY FOR CORNELIA by Gilson, Chris.

The open-faced innocence of Anna Field's voice offers up a ripe acoustical image of a woman artist in New York: Faith Crowl. Faith is commissioned by an old and wealthy New York City socialite to paint the ballroom of her storied mansion in trompe l'oeil. Faith accepts, reluctantly, afterTrick of the Eye by Jane Stanton Hitchcock read by Anna Fields

Forget the tax on sugar. Tax bad dialogue, dreadful characterizations, idiotic psychological profiles. To wit: When he was a child the twitch had made him the target of merciless teasing and bullying. It had made him burn with hatred. And that hatred had driven him to succeed. Victor Orlov wanted toThe Defector by Daniel Silva read by Phil Gigante

"Karp leaned back in his chair, swivelled to face the window, chewed on a pencil. Murrow, seeing this, left quietly, closing the door behind him. He knew these were the signs that Karp was entering Karpland . . ." as are we, God bless us, until Tanenbaum decides to makeAbsolute Rage by Robert Tanenbaum::Nick Sullivan

Robin Cook gives us another SMART & NUTS type physician, a dysfunctional, adulterous, snivelling subjectivity with a license to practice concierge medicine in Boston. Some seven chapters into the book we realize that it is still George Guidall reading. Good narrators, like good waiters, disappear, imperceptibly.CRISIS by Robin Cook::George Guidall

Wed Sep 15, 2004 Leave the Grave Green by Deborah Crumb. Narrated by Christopher Kay. Clipper Audio. c2001. Bland, unexciting, English pudding: a boy-inspector, his prissy girl partner, a murder and a family. The plot is overboiled, the storytelling unremarkable. But there are some fascinating droplets toward the end: the respectableLeave the Grave Green by Deborah Crumb. Narrated by Christopher Kay.

Two mothers. Iris, mother of the bride, is pushy, ambitious, Jewish, overpresent, and proud of her Red Hook genealogy, which can be traced back to the Battle of the Bulge. But Iris is not exactly a local. Yes, every summer Iris comes back to the oceanfront Queen Anne house,Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman read by Kimberly Farr

Hitachi's beautifully directed High Definition video series called True Stories features a segment on "Coal's Comeback". A bunch of old em·phy·se·mic grandpas are fishing, muttering into the wind, when the voice of Bruce No of Hitachi America announces that Supercritical Technology is the new generation of Coal, the cleanSister Mine by Tawni O'Dell read by Renee Raudman

Daughter of an Italian beauty who somehow wandered into the wrong mountains, Ave Maria is still considered a 'forner', despite spending 35 years in Big Stone Gap, driving the volunteer Rescue Squad truck, and directing the annual town play. Charming, stubborn, hot tempered Ave loves theatreBig Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani read by Adriana Trigiani

Schumpeter once wrote that the Stock market is a poor substitute for the holy grail. In other words, capitalism is more or less incapable of producing belief in itself. And yet, there are people who do believe in it. Ziad Abdelnour is one of them. ForMeet the Giants: An Interview with Ziad Abdelnour

Although less terrible than usual, Brick can't do funny. And this book can be funny. The ram rod straight CIA trainer; the queer, ruthless, demented Director of Operations; the stubborn, nerdish, accidentally lucky pseudo-operative determined to avenge his murdered girlfriend..... Then of course he bumps into a woman who canThe Amateur: A Novel of Revenge by Robert Littell read by Scott Brick

A wealthy society housewife discovers that her husband is having an affair during a dinner party. She leaves the marriage and with a little help from her friends loves other men, makes her own money, and succeeds. Hmm. Fast Friends by Jill Mansell

In the yard a piece of shiny scrap metal from a nuclear power plant is waiting for Roy to see it. But Roy is reading a not yet published New York Times obituary: Roy Valois a sculptor whose large works are displayed in many public spaces aroundNerve Damage by Peter Abrahams read by Alan Nebelthau