Miss Sophie Long is a Catholic School teacher who can’t parallel park, until she meets Lois, Vietnam Vet, trained sniper, mechanic, and lesbian. They live in the same neighborhood as Morgan, a size 16-18 police detective with a demented mother. At some point, to make ends meet, Sophie and Lois decide to begin killing for hire… bad guys only. And so the story zigzags between 60 year old lesbian couples, sex offenders, wife beaters, fat female cops, drug addicted daughters…. with some brilliant laughs along the way. Beautiful reading as always by Bernadette Dunne.
Short Anglo-Saxon Words….How to choose an audiobook?
Listen to the sample of Dearly Departed by David Housewright, narrated by Michael Kramer.
Hunter Truman was a man who preferred what Winston Churchill called “short Anglo-Saxon words”…words usually reserved for those moments when you hit your thumb with a hammer, or stub your toe in the dark.
Broken Harbor by Tana French read by Stephen Hogan
It takes you by the throat and starts squeezing from line 1. The Irish voice muscles out a story about post-bank crash Ireland: an out of work family living in an Unfinished family development when the money and the economy run out.
And why the economic woes of the Irish always seem so much more desperate than any other English speaking people? And why the Irish family is always already broken, always already crap?
And why the detective assigned to the case is always already bitter, depressed, hateful ….even as he searches for clues on google? Think: one dry, blood-encrusted leather glove pulled off the typing hand…
A gorgeous, wealthy language spread against the background of a greed gutted Ireland and the entire internet community of gun-nut castratos.
Read with: michael Lewis, Maeve Binchy.
Beaded to Death by Janis Patterson read by Gayle Hendrix
A widowed ex-schoolteacher who makes beautiful beaded jewelry and travels from craft show to craft show returns home to find a dead man in her kitchen. The local detective assigned to the case is a dog: he botches up the initial investigation and Lillianne’s house is totally trashed, searched and vandalized…. Someone is looking for something but she has no idea who or what… Annie — her gorgeous lawyer-friend, saves Lilliane from the silly police detective but trouble follows Lilliane until she herself is forced to solve the murder ….
Faye Kellerman’s Sanctuary read by Mitch Greenberg
Marge’s first homicide begins with an Israeli real estate agent and an empty house. .. Yalom, “whose name means diamond” calls the L.A. police to tell them that her sister has disappeared. There are clothes in the closet, three cars in the three car garage, but no people. Decker, converted Jew and police detective, notices that the mezuzah is attached to the inside of the doorway, and it secrets nothing — no holy scroll blessing a Jewish home.
The Mr. and Mrs. are found buried, their two boys are missing, and a bank safe filled with papers points to an unholy war with the largest South African diamond company in the world. Rena and Decker are off to South Africa….
Robert K. Tanenbaum: Gotham
Remember once upon at time when you watched BATMAN because the last episode had Batman hanging by his toes over a vat of melted rubber hoses? And you had to tune in to the same Bat time, same Bat station to find out what happened? And even though you knew (sort of) that Batman would be OK, there was always the possibility that the music would end, and after a few WHAMs and KAZOOMs the bad guys would win?
Well bad things happen in Karpland — Islamic terrorists try to
- 1. bomb the Brooklyn Bridge
- 2. crash the New York Stock Market
- 3. assassinate an Honest Senator
- 4. take over St. Patricks Cathedral and do evil to its holy hostages
- 5. drive suicide bread trucks filled with bombs through Borough Park
- 6. Dress up as Chassidic Jews
- 7. Pour money into Mosques in Harlem in order to train black Muslims to join the Jihad against the U.S. Constitution
And the law is alive….
The Fifth Vial by Michael Palmer read by J. Charles
Natalie is an arrogant medical student with a Portuguese speaking mother. She gets into trouble in one of her clinical classes and is suspended for four months. When she travels to Brazil, she is hijacked and surgically assaulted. A down and out private detective is hired by a watch-dog organization dedicated to putting an end to trafficking in human organs.
Death in a Wine-Dark Sea by Lisa King
A nympho wine reviewer with a boyfriend who doesn’t like to fuck on boats looks for a killer in San Francisco. But there are no localized mappings, detailing the city or its’ neighborhoods, except for traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. Likewise, don’t expect any happy wine tasting menu — there’s nothing here except for a wine bottle used to knock out a bad guy. Jeanne has silver hair — since she was 18 — and toddler type temper tantrums which are described as emotions. She uses her anger to dominate and seduce, and turns up one clue after another in her first detective gig. She hates high heels, but can dress up for parties and to tease out suspects. An interesting but unlikable character, not feminine but feminized, and tall.
Discretion by Allison Leotta read by Tavia Gilbert
Discretion is the name of a D.C. Escort Service, so exclusive that it doesn’t advertise on Back Page or Eros. The most expensive and popular “provider” at Discretion is “Sasha” who is rated “9s” and ’10s’ in the Appearance and Performance categories on Trick Adviser— an on line Ratings service for Escorts. Sasha gives D.C. ‘hobbyists’ the chance to ‘date’ the kind of Sports Illustrated centerfold they’d never be able to do if they were’nt paying $5000 for the privilege. When Sasha is thrown off the balcony of a Congressman’s ‘hideaway’, the Madame is subpoenaed to hand over ten years worth of very private information about her girls and her clients. Anna, a Sex Crimes Prosecutor, works side by side with Samantha, a beautiful FBI agent, to find the killer. A serious, somber, feminized view of a D.C. criminal investigation.
Switchback by Mathew Klein read by Chris Patton
Timothy Van Bender’s beautiful, disappointed wife signed a pre-nuptial agreement which protected Timothy’s inherited wealth from the contingency of her (slightly embarrassing) lower class. When she commits suicide, Timothy is left with a failing hedge fund, a not-yet redecorated house in Silicon Valley, his membership at the Menlo Circus Club, where executives indicted for securities fraud bring their second wives, and a lot of disinformation about his twenty year marriage. Alcohol and a hunger for capital ‘incentivizes’ lots of confused and desperate beliefs: Timothy invests in a biogenetic engineer who promises him a new body, alongside a new version of his old wife. Timothy stops off at a bar, just before committing suicide and discovers that things are not at all as they seem to be. Fast, twisted, well told morality tale.