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

Reacher heard the rack of the slide twenty feet behind him. He heard it very clearly. It was exactly the kind of sound he had trained himself never to miss. To his ears, it was a complete, complex split second symphony and every component registered precisely. The scrape of alloyBad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child read by Dick Hill

Clever social critique wrapped up in smart, pretty fiction, with a side of acerbic wit. Beautifully thought out by a very ordered English-speaking mind.Capital by John Lanchester read by Colin Mace

"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

Another New York City nanny? No, no. This one wakes up screaming every morning, unable to stop the dream of a body bag around a not yet dead body. This one is having an affair with the father of the children she is nannying. This one sees cockroachesYou’ve Been Warned by James Patterson & Howard Roughan Read by Ilyana Kadushin

Sharpen your pencils, open your looseleaf, sit up, take notes. This is an impressive, intelligent, well researched white-paper-thriller about silly, soppy, environmental theories and the well-funded, well publicized, well-established bureaucracies which profit by circulating them. 'State of Fear' is the coinage of a 'Mental Ecologist' whose hysterical critique of a toxicState of Fear by Michael Crichton read by George Wilson

Holly is a youngish, prettyish, slightly loopy, Dublinite whose happy husband tells her what to do. Everybody jokes that if Gerry ever died, he would have to leave her a list ... and when he dies, he does. Leave a list. Sort of. Holly is given 10 envelopes, with instructions,P.S. I Love You by Cecilia Ahern Narrated by Bernadette Dunne

A big man, a private eye, ex-military, school of Afghanistan, minus one leg and one girlfriend, hires a relentlessly normal secretary for a week. She stays on. He gets a case. She helps. Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

One reads, and reads, and reads... and one forgets how good it feels to consider the world through the jolly eyes of a clever and forgiving judge. P.D. James, for example. Consider the small Anglican college of St Alselm's, faithful not only to God and Church but to the immemorialDeath in Holy Orders by P.D. James Narrated by Charles Keating

Nine times out of ten, if you've got a paranoid psychotic on the loose, his name is Raymond, he's mumbling something in Russian, and he's been hypnotized by his mother -- who is vicious and who controls the world. Allan Folsom is wonderful. So is Richard Condon. The extra bitThe Exile by Allan Folsom Read by Paul Michael

This is so well read, so well thought out, so well organized that it stands out as a motherlode of precious advise for anybody who wants to work better, be better, CHANGE. Remember your fifth grade teacher? The one that was a little pretty, a little strict, a little scary? TheBernadette Dunne reads Work Less Make More by Jennifer White

Two London twits, one Giantess and one Mum, run a domestic agency, performing unlovable chores for unlovable wives with money. The two twits rehash I Love Lucy daffiness during the subprime era of extravagance. Another dose of the English language fading into bad American dialogue and imitation Hollywood idiocy.Getting Mad, Getting Even by Annie Sanders read by Suzy Aitchison

Ed McBain's DOLL (Pouty D, drag the O, tongue heavy on the L.) is bedtime reading. The warped, lusty, utterly female voice of this slut-goddess kicks you in the groin, cuffs you to the radiator, and feeds you sex and ham sandwiches. You, or rather Steve Carella, who rarely gets tangled up withDOLL by Ed McBain read by

Alone. Another Abridged Morality Play by Lisa Gardner Sometimes one wonders whether books get written by stringing together the top keywords in Google. Sex-cops-beautiful wife-abused child-murder-guns-rich family-domestic violence-sharpshooter-alcoholic father-politics-doctors-baseball. (Never forget baseball.) Calculate the page rank, and you get: Good cop gets bad girl. Bad girl has good excuse. Good copAlone. Another Abridged Morality Play by Lisa Gardner

It is rare to hear the barely conscious memories of a powerful woman reconnoitring the dimensions of a frustrated girlhood. The wooden, joyless father, the servile, fearful, nervous mother, the rules, the order, the manners, the placements, the positions, the positionings of the dinner table, extended to the smallest sensationsA Certain Justice by P.D. James read by Simon Prebble

Big sisters play dirty. So do cops, wives, mothers. So do cities... like Memphis. As always the best mysteries revolve around the murder of a city. And this is one of the best: gritty, angry, twisted...Mississippi Noir. The giant A & W Root Beer mug shimmered over the rooftop of aA Little Death in Dixie by Lisa Turner read by Jeffrey Kafer