Stone Cold by David Baldacci. Read by Ron McLarty

Good idea, poorly executed.

19 Years of Reviews

Frank Muller reading William Caunitz Just a paragraph. Listen to Frank Muller saying: "All in a day. It's almost like there's a puppet master pulling all our chains." Somehow, he lets the sense roll in and then rides it with his voice so that the words are gathered up in a hugeFrank Muller reading Chains of Command by William Caunitz

The girl reading this is California cool, with a strawberry blonde voice, that emerges just slightly bored from a long lean body, a finely boned neck, a tight mouth. John Lennon's death begins not only a book but a mood: a being-in-a-fucked-world mood, a being-towards-the-next-cigarette mood, theDraft: Paint it Black by Janet Finch

A bouquet of accidents pop up at the beginning of the story: a cab crash in Manhattan, a car crash in Darien, Connecticut, an overdose in Mitford...For the rest of this story, the notion of accident is under erasure. What after all is an accident? Is the housing crisis anThe Accident by Linwood Barclay read by Peter Berkrot

Does a low pitched male voice lend authenticity to a bodice ripper? A rich Houston real estate agent calls on her ex-lover to help protect their daughter from a violent maniac. Tough Customer by Sandra Brown read by Victor Slezak

Three women who are discontent present the traditional female problems, but unhinge these problems in different ways. One woman whines about her husband not wanting to pay for yet another IVF treatment; another woman whines about her unfaithful husband; another whines about being alone. But by the end of this story, noneA Secret Wish by Barbara Freethy narrated by Amy Rubinate

"It was no longer about the money, it was that innocent people had died." This insincere, formulaic, unremarkable thought is thought yet again by Hilary the victim in the 68th Chapter of this disappointing 'thriller'. Another poor and pretty mother, another psychopath, another Asperbergers child. Who cares?Everything to Lose by Andrew Gross read by Tavia Gilbert

We get information in clumps, tangles, bunches. There are facts, mixed up with opinions, references, foreign words, sounds and descriptions referring to where we are talking, what is going on where we are talking, the distraction-ridden machinery of a technologically frenzied environment, analogies dragged in from confused personal archives,Fiddlers by Ed McBain read by Charles Stransky

Interesting detective novel about an ex-Mexican ex-sheriff and his deputy-historian. A little bloody but lots of clean writing, and a sharpening style. Good lines. Cartwright was spry and walked fast… he led me around a lush Palo Verdi tree. It reminded me of the way trenches had been constructed on the Western FrontThe Night Detectives by Jon Talton read by Jim Meskimen (A David Mapstone Mystery)

Let's just say that murders happened in the middle of other things: a cop, a lawyer, a fire investigator get up, they fight with their wives, they eat. Sometimes they think. The law is something they think about. How it came to be what it is, where it came from,ORIGIN & CAUSE by Shelly Reuben

More than a little over the top, Clara Hutt is dropping her 2 boys off this morning wearing her pajama bottoms (again) and wondering (again) why all the other mothers can arrive at school with perfectly starched blouses and expertly applied makiage. Not now, Darling, I'm Paaaarking," andIndia Knight's My Life on a Plate read by Jill Tanner

Constructed as a series of letters to a slightly fay, newly divorced, 45 year old antiques expert, this whodunit offers criminality inset in decorating news and auction house frippery. Mrs. Sterling Glass is keeping her ex-husband's last name because "who would give up the nameStealing with Style by Emyl Jenkins read by Linda Stephens

At the end of this very long book, a famous publisher asks an ex-novelist to write about Wall Street during the subprime fiasco. But the novelist can only write about the novelist. No characters, no plot, no events ever get beyond the "me" of this word dealer. Annoying, pizzicato readingDear Money by M. McPhee read by Kate Reading.

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

In between rolling translations of Anglo-Saxon chronicles, poems, histories, M.C.D. Drout hawks 566 years of kings, pirates, popes, monks, wars, buildings and battles. But most and first of all, he hooks us with language, giving us bits of Anglo-Saxon poems, lists of Old English words (some, siton,The Anglo Saxon World by M.C.D. Drout

The voice is soft, delicate, unfinished. It tells a story about Noelle, a "human resources" admin with an infamous British great aunt whose estate she has just inherited. Long ago, her past had mixed with her aunt's and her aunt's paintings -- but for years they had not communicated.Painting the Moon by Traci Borum