Stone Cold by David Baldacci. Read by Ron McLarty

Good idea, poorly executed.

19 Years of Reviews

Cynthia Darlow always lends coziness and warmth to stories about Southern life, Southern manners, and Southern towns. Like many, this story begins with an inheritance: the old Farrington mansion along with its papers, pictures, and privy things. This time, the heir is a 45 year old single mother andFirst Impressions by Jude Devereaux read by Cynthia Darlow

How fun to be a stubborn, sensible English widow who takes up decorating or hotelkeeping or moves to Brighton. The kind of fun that takes time: not like those television garden shows that demonstrate "how to transform an entire garden in a matter of five hours while the lady ofElvi Rhodes A House By the Sea read by Anne Dover

4 grandmasters of plot. Extraordinary Vietnam tale by King. Posted By: admin () Date: 08/03/2005 11:02 amLawrence Block, Stephen King, John Farris, edited by Ed McBain

A divorced, unemployed home organizer with a drug-addict son is hired to empty out the hoarded contents of an aging artist. Uncluttering the house is accompanied by a series of decisions about why and why not something is or is not valuable. An interesting and entertaining study of people andObjects of My Affection by Jill Smolinski read by Xe Sands

Slow, cloddish, cumbersome and overcooked dialogue stretches across this morality play about an ugly presidential election. Add the 'aching sadness' and 'fatal failures' and 'eyes shining with tears' of flat white characters, but read on. Hear the slimy campaign advise of slimy campaign managers: "Girlfriend is bad. BlackThe Race by Richard North Patterson Narrated by Michael Boatman

No, this is not a book about a new pope. It is about a Roman Catholic arson investigator-ette. Of course, she's blonde. And she has a huge, overprotective, overloving and overlovable family who teach us right and wrong and manners, like old Italian recipes that work. Joyce Bean reads Nora Roberts: Blue Smoke

"Dear Chatter: To answer your question, when a Southerner looks at you with a blank smile and doesn't answer you right away, it's because he doesn't trust you and he's lookin' you over and seein' how much damage you can do as a human bein'...Have a nice day!" Chatter is aSouthern Living by Ad Hudler read by Cynthia Darlow

Whatever falls from the sky above, thou shalt not curse it. That includes the rain. No matter what might pour down, no matter how heavy the cloudburst or how icy the sleet, you should never ever utter profanities against whatever the heavens have in store for us. Everybody knowsThe Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak read by Laurel Merlington

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

It is not obvious that there are soldiers missing in action from the war in Iraq. It is said that the Arabs do not take prisoners, do not leave Americans alive. So the horror of a category of men archived by the subjunctive, neither real nor unreal, neither past norThe Confirmation :: Thomas Powers read by George Guidall

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 belong to me, D-o-l-l" she says to Steve Carella. And you do. Or want to. As does Steve Carella, detective and good guy ofDOLL by Ed McBain (Pouty D, drag the O, tongue heavy on the L.)

Because this is a women's book you will read about a man, probably a husband, and he will be successful and fit and when he dies he will leave his wife betrayed, in debt and uninformed.Widow's Waltz by Sally Koslow

There is a ghoulish, golemic, East European element that surfaces in the life of every dishy Jewish blonde A.D.A. in NYC. A specific perversion, a senselessness knocks at her door just before it becomes evil, or criminal, or comic. She is buried alive in the Botanical Gardens by a paraphiliac withLinda Fairstein Death Dance read by Barbara Rosenblat

Only Anne Tyler can make an off-license church appear as American as apple pie, and it's off-beat flock, a fumbling but cuddlesome assemblage. The Church of the Second Chance is both a hovel and haven of forgiveness, a familial supplement to a family no longer familiar, a familySaint Maybe by Anne Tyler read by George Guidall

It is not obvious that what happens to English in L.A. is natural, because what is natural in California is not natural anywhere else. But if nature is not local, what is? What localizes language? Why does Hollywood Nate understand another cop who asks him whether an Indian girl isHollywood Moon by Joseph Wambaugh