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19 Years of Reviews

There is something annoying, something unsettling, something demoralizing about a story in which all the women are either murder victims, embittered but useless mothers, faithful, ineffectual wives, or sexually charged students with dancers' bodies. Annoying, too, is witnessing an entire small town turn against an innocent man and his brainyThe Bone House by Brian Freeman read by Joe Barrett

This is a charming very digestable story about one sister told by another. The sister in the spotlight is a freckled lovable morning news show host, with a perpetual trousseau of people who dress her, praise her, and advertise her friendship. A black limo brings herRise and Shine by Anna Quindlen read by Carol Monda

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...

A pleasant lyrical description of the minute details of English country life presents the full world of a small town's folk, in all their deep old habits, their social quirks and irritabilities, and their precious sense of the finite order of inherited obligations. Mrs Willett can tackle a hundred jobs withoutA Storm at Fairacre, Village Diary, Changes at Fairacre by Miss Read read by Gwen Watford

Well crafted character flaws in this 21st century noir detective story with a cheating wife and an ex-circus dick. Reading: Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan read by Paul Hecht

Well crafted words read by a dulled, depressed and depressing voice. Read it instead.Paint it Black by Janet Fitch read by Jennifer Jason Leigh

There is a ghoulish, golemic, East European element that surfaces in the life of every dishy Jewish blonde A.D.A. in NYC. A specific perversion, a senselessness knocks at her door just before it becomes evil, or criminal, or comic. She is buried alive in the Botanical Gardens by a paraphiliac withLinda Fairstein Death Dance read by Barbara Rosenblat

It could be any small college town and any next door neighbor. But the town is Promise Falls and the neighbors next door are The Langleys. The story begins when they are murdered. Bert the policeman investigates the neighborhood, starting with Jim Cutter's house. Jim has beenToo Close To Home by Linwood Barclay read by Christopher Lane

No, this is not a book about a new pope. It is about a Roman Catholic arson investigator-ette. Of course, she's blonde. And she has a huge, overprotective, overloving and overlovable family who teach us right and wrong and manners, like old Italian recipes that work. Joyce Bean reads Nora Roberts: Blue Smoke

If you're going to murder somebody, ten to one there's an old Cheez Doodle underneath the front seat of your car. Which is why Cheez Doodles have become some of the very best indicators of feloniousness among otherwise reasonable novelists like Dean Koonz, Jim Hall and Harlan Coben. Think of theFalse Memory by Dean Koontz read by Stephen Lang

Venice is an old small town of old small sins. The Venice, that is, of Commissario Guido Brunetti, who may want no more of life than to read Xenophon and wait for his wife to come home from the Rialto with soft shell crabs. It is a Venice ofFriends in High Places by Donna Leon::Anna Fields

Yes it is well written. Yes, it reels you in and captivates you, and the dialogue is peppy enough to make you grin. But. All Hemingway needed to write was: Who was she? for Bacall to deliver the message that Bogie was being a dick, and she wasn't having any,Not Hemingway. Sea Glass Sunrise by Donna Kauffman read by Amanda Ronconi

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

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

Three women who are discontent present the traditional female problems, but unhinge these problems in different ways. One woman whines about her husband not wanting to pay for yet another IVF treatment; another woman whines about her unfaithful husband; another whines about being alone. But by the end of this story, noneA Secret Wish by Barbara Freethy narrated by Amy Rubinate