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Connecticut River Valley, New England, United States

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Can't Get Into Books on MP 3!

Black Monday: A Stan Turner MysteryBlack Monday: A Stan Turner Mystery by William Manchee

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a limited edition MP3 version of the sixth in a series of Stan Turner mysteries. It took a long time to get through since my mind tends to wander during recorded books so they get " read " in dribs and drabs. To think I used to listen to the radio for hours as a kid and never missed a word!



Anyway, in addition to my wandering mind, the recording itself has some problems. There are only two narrators, Jeffrey Kafer, whose voice is very droning and lacking in expression, and Arika Escalona, who is very perky and probably a good voice for the attractive law partner, Paula Waters. They take turns reading the various chapters --unfortunately, that means that he takes on the voices of women in his chapters and she takes on the voices of men in hers and neither are very good at it. As a result it was most difficult to keep track of the various characters to say nothing of how irritating and tedious the numerous iterations of " he said " , " I said ", " she replied " became.



The cases the two persued were interesting and I think I'd have enjoyed the hard copy book. As already noted this is the sixth in the series so it is imagined that the attraction between the married Stan and the seductive Paula has been developed along the line. It comes to a head here--she's engaged, the boyfriend is nice but just can't arouse her the way Stan can. So a gratuitous semi-sex scene in the janitor's closet at her night before the wedding party is thrown. Then the next day, Stan, hung over from too many Bourbon and 7's--the man has absolutely no taste and I hope he drinks rot-gut bourbon--isn't really sure what happened. Hate blaming bad behavior on too much to drink--she's getting married tomorrow? and she's seducing a guy in a closet? And he's married and hopes Rebecca doesn't get where the lipstick on his collar--what a cliche--came from. Please, leave out the sex and seduction--it takes away from the story and is the weakest part of the writing. Hopefully, now that they are both married they can either work together professionally or they can break up the partnership and show some maturity in marriage.



This was a goodreads giveaway and I've since won #10 in the series. I'm looking forward to reading it. My review here is more on the quality of the format than the actual literary quality, which is at least average and appealing.







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2 comments:

  1. I have never liked listening to recorded books. The one that finally put me off them for good was a Eudora Welty novel. The reader had a charming voice, and reproduced "Louisiana sloooowww" perfectly.
    I could feel my hair growing while I listened to it.

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  2. There's a female Dj on one of the country sirius stations that speaks that way--drives me nuts. The same kind of voice as the pothole in that insurance commercial--which, since it was short, was kind of cute. Like the blonde in Leverage.

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