Hollywood Station by Joseph Wambaugh > recordedbookreview.com

What happens to a hard cop in a hard city in an era below good and evil.

19 Years of Reviews

Publisher: Harper Audio ; Distributed by Recorded Books,Pub Date: p2001 Extraordinary work. Self-centered opera singer and doting Japanese businessman-fan hostaged by South American amateur terrorists at glitterati party. BEL CANTO by Ann Patchett

Michael Cantela is the youngest winner of the Investment Advisor of the Year at the elite investment firm of Saxton Silvers. He has a knack for making rich people richer, an apartment on Sutton Place, an unemployed wife, and an eight or nine figure personal portfolio. ThatMoney To Burn by James Grippando, narrated by Jonathan Davis

Despite a perfect narrator, with a perfect Italian pronunciation of pithy Italian sayings, the mystery lacks a singularly compelling plot, indeed any plot. Disappointing because the author has a lot to say. .... Murder in Tranquility Park by J.D. Griffo

Firm writing, good characters, heavy social issues, but no story. Meet Ruth. A divorced mother who teaches sex education at a public high school is more or less forced to teach abstinence according to a rosy if delusional Christian fundamentalist agenda. Meet Tim: divorced, saved and reformed byThe Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta read by Campbell Scott

Lots of interesting characters on Blossom Street: a widow with an adopted daughter, a tough ex-punk happily married and unhappily smoking, a good son and chocolate factory owner with a growing heart problem, a charmed and charming owner of a knitting store, a gorgeous single girl getting over an ex-fianceeSummer on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber read by Miss Delilah

It is the story of a happy Captain of a sinking ship. It is the story of Chernobyl, afterwards. It is the story of provisional investigators, provisional policemen, provisional scientists who are provisionally accepted as the mad inhabitants of a zone officially uninhabited, in which no crime officially occurs. TheWolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith

As the eighties crash down around him in images of newly divorced women and unusably long nails, Macon emerges as a peculiar species of American male bent on reorganizing the world. Author of guidebooks for businessmen who hate to travel, Macon Leary writes about the latest KFC openingThe Accidental Tourist Anne Tyler::George Guidall

Remarkable introduction to a remarkable detective novel. The introduction explains that Crofts was an engineer who mapped out detailed specifications for his detective fiction much the way an engineer would draw up plans for a house or a bridge. Knowing this transforms the way we read and appreciate theThe Hog's Back Mystery by Freeman Wills Crofts with an introduction by Martin Edwards read by Gordon Griffin

Who in God's name could murder a woman who puts doilies on the bottom of guest-room wastepaper baskets? In this decade of the Mother, of Mommihood, of stretchy, skin tight maternity dresses, of preternaturally calm Nannies, Long Time No See is perhaps the precursor of a series of mysteriesLong Time No See:: Re-hearing Susan Isaacs read by Cristine Mcmurdo-Wallis

Although I didn't see her face, I knew that the woman in the coloring chair was beautiful. It wasn't just because she had long, lush, gorgeous hair, but because she was tearing out a page of WWD, where she had eyed another beautiful woman with long hair. And beautiful womenI Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron read by Nora Ephron

A few Jewish words referring to a few ritual baked goods eaten by a few Jews does not a Jewish novel make. Nor does a description of a modestly clad woman with her hair tied back by a long scarf. If the Peter Decker novels wielded some specific charm byBlindman's Bluff by Faye Kellerman read by Mitch Greenburg

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

Read this series by Jan Karon about a diabetic Episcopalian rector in a small town in North Carolina whose fat happy female parishioners cant stop baking him pies cakes and cookies. Very very funny scenes with neglected husbands eating unthawed church sale cakes the minute their wives aren't looking, aJan Karon: The Mitford Series

This second in the "Allison Campbell Mystery" series is disappointing. It would have been nice to come back to a different kind of detecting woman -- a woman whose job it is to detect -- and re-configure -- a social image. The image of a person is of course aDeadly Assets by Wendy Tyson read by Tanya Eby

A hotel room. Vegas. A whore, with a gun at her forehead and a cock in her mouth. They told her downstairs that the guy was important, a banker. And that's what she tells her friend when she gets home. Her friend is Colonel Eddie Manso, who has always knownLawrence Block, The Specialists, read by Fred Sullivan