Fractured by Karen Slaughter read by Phil Gigante

A collection of lost boys with dyslexia, poor little rich girls, orphans with personality disorders, meet in Atlanta, on different sides of the law.

19 Years of Reviews

As tempting and tasty as yellow cake are these novels about single but not terribly singular women, suddenly alone or suddenly in trouble or suddenly displaced. If they had worked they become domestic, if they had had money they no longer do, if they had been married, they are divorced,Nosy Neighbor by Fern Michaels read by Andrea Gallo

Two women, one girl. One steals identities, one leaves identities behind her. Zosie de l'Alba is the bad witch with red lollipop shoes, who befriends the good witch, draws the entire neighborhood into her chocolate shop, and seduces an adolescent girl. The Girl With No Shadow by Joanne Harris

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

Disgraced, crazed, outlawed for his goodie goodieness, ex-prosecutor for the Justice Department is given one last project: investigate the disappearance of Martin Green, an aide on the intelligence committee. J is coupled with a Southern belle-neophyte FBI agent, and instructed to find nothing.Law of Gravity by Stephen Horn read by Dylan Baker

A girl detective who can speak a thousand languages, with her own personal Saint, New York City's District Attorney as her father, and an ex Viet-Cong guerrilla as a nanny -- only Robert Tanenbaum (and the City itself) could conjure up the sad, inscrutable Lucy Karp. As always when weRobert Tanenbaum Malice read by Mel Foster

In a small town in bourgeois Massachusetts, the wife of an NSA agent is killed by a car bomb as she starts up her husband's car. It seems obvious that the bomb was directed at the husband, but Jennifer, the twin of the dead wife, is not so sure. SheDeadly Codes by JP O'Donnell

Gruff, base, raspy, cutting: a voice with a fist wrapped around it. That sandpaper thing, that tough, tight, testosterone thing. That private dick thing, Slovak style. Ex-cop ex-husband Milan Jacovich spits out violently funny running commentary on the seraglio of rich snobbish dames, old time bosses and stubborn Slovenes that populateThe Cleveland Local by Les Roberts::Les Roberts

It's always interesting to explore a place through its crime scenes. Like the not yet totally gentrified neighborhoods of Northwest Philadelphia, on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River. Which runs through this mystery as it runs through Pennsylvania. All along the river young women are being murderedMerciless by Rich Montanari read by Scott Brick

Ever since Tracy Ullmann quipped that being in your early 50s was a wonderful time for most actresses, I've been watching for a script. Here it is. The next Meryl Streep movie: what better role for an over 50 actress than that of a politician's wife? That's right, one ofFly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner read by Judith Light

After the funeral, there is the family and the village. There is a batty aunt, a hysterical and heirless English lord, his ancient butler, and a smattering of inadequate and weak-willed in-laws, waiting for their share. These are the leftovers of the comfortable class, who married badly and relied onAfter The Funeral by Agatha Christie read by Hugh Fraser

The last of the Rabbi Small series narrated with an annoying over-aggressive punkishness by Guidall -- to intimate, perhaps, the intellectual aggression of Rabbi Small, the clever not-to-be socialized puzzle solver and prayer leader of the Conservative Jews of Barnard's Crossing Massachusetts. The characters are at least as aliveThe Day the Rabbi Resigned by Harry Kemelman read by George Guidall

This was supposed to be about four retired couples, cops and wives, living in Florida and solving crimes (not cases). But Spillane turned it into a study of memory. Imagine a blinded amnesiacal lover secreted away inside a community of retired cops in New Jersey, and rediscovered by her oldDead Street by Mickey Spillane read by Richard Ferrone

Every hyphenated family is unhappy in its own way. And so the Wyatt-Yarmouth family is unhappy not only because its son has died in a small town in British Columbia where a sweet, incompetent, merry constable is trying to keep the peace. There is also a venomousWinter of Secrets by Vicki Delany read by Carrington MacDuffie

A happy surgeon falls over face down into an open gall bladder and is exiled from his caste of four: the AMA, the Hospital, the HMO, the elite medical partnership operating out of Boston. The sad misadventures of a circus of medical accountants, gatekeepers, technocrats, and insurance agents sets theThe Society by Michael Palmer read by J. Charles

For those who do not like the Judge Knott series, Maron has penned this sweet perfectly turned out book about an heiress, an illustrator, granddaughter of a legendary children’s book publisher. Meek, sensitive, submissive as both wife and publishing executive, Amy Steadman finds herself alone, driving to theLast Days of Summer by Margaret Maron read by Kate Forbes