The Church Builder by AL Shields > recordedbookreview.com

The technique of the teacher that will not die: there is a law professor in y our head that is still teaching you contracts, except that instead he is asking you about why you are driving to Philadelphia after you have discovered a dead ex in your house killed with your gun …

19 Years of Reviews

Jesus Mary and Joseph in Rocksburg, Pa. Heartflipping. Smile wrenching. Honestagawd. Self-conscious, thoughtful, slightly misaligned human being, good son, and Detective Sergeant Acting Chief, Rocksburg Police, Rugs [”because some people think they can walk all over me”] Carlucci, falls in love while investigating death of sociopath baseball legend. Utter-fuckingly wonderful.BRUSHBACK by K.C. Constantine :: Lloyd James

A Bruegellian world of busy little people working very hard and magical children repeating absolutely useless gestures: marvellous Maeve Binchy. Eddie's dressmaker mother is surrounded by patterns and perpetually draped in some nearly finished garment as she sews and listens to the radio. "Let's just agree that he didn't keepThe Copper Beech by Maeve Binchy read by Barbara Caruso

Forget Harley Street. The latest design in shrinks is a six foot 250 pound lesbian weight lifter who runs a pub with her bosomy girlfriend, and offers bed, morning after breakfast, and laundry service. This is what the 21st century male patient wants: a powerful, intuitive M.D. who canThe Chameleon's Shadow by Minette Walters read by Simon Vance

Friendly, low-key, perspicacious suggestions on how to think about a marriage, how to prepare for it, and how to judge a potential marriage partner. Humorous anecdotes drive home the way to work your beliefs into your relationships. A mother who believes in original sin knows that every human being isWhom Not To Marry by Father Pat Connor Read by Robin Sachs

Here's the recipe: a youngish, pretty-ish, orphaned wife in or near Manhattan; a deceptive, felonious, or sleepwalking husband; a repressed or forgotten family scene, and wealth. Large, plush estates in tony suburbs, classic co-ops on exclusive avenues, perfectly cut clothes and lawns, professionally designed apartments, luxurious offices, alwaysMary Higgins Clark...

There are very few perfect beginnings to a story. Beginnings which move through images at the same rate as they move through text, rolling into a plot detectibly, sensibly, unhurriedly. A boy, for example, making the rounds on his bicycle, delivering the daily papers: ...At Colonel and Mrs Easterbrook's,A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie

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

Mike Lawson is very very good. He is even better read by Joe Barrett. De Marco is a 'bagman' with a law degree, who even passed the Virginia Bar but never practiced law, whose happy aunt or godmother got him a job working for the fat, charming, lecherous, Speaker of theHouse Justice by Mike Lawson read by Joe Barrett

A widowed librarian makes friends with an old man who leaves her his land in Australia, near Perth, on the condition that she will live there for a year, alone. She leaves her brother with his communication problems and moves to the charming Western Australian estate, where the passionate, difficultKirsty's Vineyard by Anna Jacobs read by Nicolette McKenzie

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

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

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

When the big brained businessmen of Europe come home, they don't want brainy, brilliant, succulent text. They want fashionable, gossipy, obscenely stupid words popping out of fashionable, gossipy, obscenely stupid secretarial types. On heels. They want to come to America, for a night. And wake up inDrek, in pink: Wolves in Chic Clothing by Karasyov and Kargman, read by Gasteyer

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Messrs. Gates and Jobs joked about the famous Apple commercials showing a boring P.C. suit and an eternally nerdy Mac user at a Carlsbad, California D: All Things Digital conference. "The art of those commercial is not to be mean. It'sBill and Steve and the Wall Street Journal's bad grammar

"You know how Thais are: totally fair minded Buddhists until their personal income is threatened." For we farang, the improbability of Thailand is as good as fiction. Where else would one find a dejected pot-smoking homicide detective and his long-haired assistant, a "Kathoey transsexual who has not yet scraped together theThe Godfather of Kathmandu by John Burdett read by Stephen Hogan