The Measure > recordedbookreview.com

There should be and will be a measure of a good writer, which is the number of words it takes for the reader to be INSIDE the story. Up, up and away. Peter Robinson: 10. Kristin Hannah/Hannah Kristin: 25. Ernest Hemingway: 4.

19 Years of Reviews

1235 12399 1234 First create a pattern. A pattern creates an expectation. Then, disappoint the expectation. So Lehane gives us a prostitute who turns into a decoy who turns into a very pretty woman who wants to take her detective-investigator boss to a hotel room, and does. But sheMoonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane read by Jonathan Davis (with a limping Boston accent)

Another silly and lovable murder mystery written by an out of work real estate agent? Well, let's see: Dixie Hemingway is a 32 year old ex-deputy living Sarasota, Florida, with her brother, the fireman, and his lover, Pablo, an undercover cop. She is a certified and insured andCuriosity Killed the Cat Sitter by Blaize Clement, performed by Julia Gibson

Private eye with basic grammar skills looks for two kidnapped girls in small town, and gets cozy with the Sheriff's son.A Stranger In Town by Cheryl Bradshaw read by Crystal Sershin

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

Food, sex, and Rome. Delicious words string together bodies of edible women and edible animals and recipes of both until it seems uncivilized to separate eating and coupling.The Food of Love::Anthony Capella :: Rocco Sisto

Robin Cook gives us another SMART & NUTS type physician, a dysfunctional, adulterous, snivelling subjectivity with a license to practice concierge medicine in Boston. Some seven chapters into the book we realize that it is still George Guidall reading. Good narrators, like good waiters, disappear, imperceptibly.CRISIS by Robin Cook::George Guidall

Not since James Bond have we witnessed such a "spectacular mesomorph, built of nothing except large quantities of bone, sinew and muscle." Indeed, his body introduces him: ...with his shirt off most people saw only his scars. He had a dozen minor nicks and cuts plus a dimpled 38 bullet holeLee Child's Jack Reacher in Nothing to Lose read by Dick Hill

A very clever book, horribly named. Holly the perky divorced real estate agent shows Bill a very very big house after Bill's partner tells him to buy Tara for their new law office. "Think what this house says about the people who live here....!" she says. It says that they have spentPMS Outlaws::Sharyn McCrumb read by Barbara Rosenblat

If you're Jewish and you have a brother and he's still married, this is NOT how he will sound after he divorces his goyishe wife who you've never liked anyway. Because the person reading this acid-funny tale doesn't have the nasal force or the resentful irregularity or that specific JewishThis is where I leave you by Jonathan Tropper performed by Ramon de Ocampo

Two London twits, one Giantess and one Mum, run a domestic agency, performing unlovable chores for unlovable wives with money. The two twits rehash I Love Lucy daffiness during the subprime era of extravagance. Another dose of the English language fading into bad American dialogue and imitation Hollywood idiocy.Getting Mad, Getting Even by Annie Sanders read by Suzy Aitchison

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 withThe Church Builder by AL Shields

One of the good Patterson & Gross collaborations, with a new villain called "the Israeli" and another called "the electrician". The descriptions of Haifa and Patagonia could have been cut out of Wiki. Joe Mantegna does adorable Italian goombas, and respectable Chechnian, Russian and Middle Eastern hoods. Seven discsJudge and Jury::James Patterson::Joe Mantegna

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

Two mothers. Iris, mother of the bride, is pushy, ambitious, Jewish, overpresent, and proud of her Red Hook genealogy, which can be traced back to the Battle of the Bulge. But Iris is not exactly a local. Yes, every summer Iris comes back to the oceanfront Queen Anne house,Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman read by Kimberly Farr

Smiley receives a letter from his ex, reads ("I want to make you an offer which no gentleman could accept. I want to come back to you. I'm staying at the Baur au Lac in Zurich till the end of the month. Let me know.") and thinks: "That was Ann. LetCall For the Dead by John Le Carre Narrated by Frank Muller(!)