recordedbookreview.com

Dear Money by M. McPhee read by Kate Reading.

.ed — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:10:47 +0000

At the end of this very long book, a famous publisher asks an ex-novelist to write about Wall Street during the subprime fiasco. But the novelist can only write about the novelist. No characters, no plot, no events ever get beyond the “me” of this word dealer. Annoying, pizzicato reading by Kate Reading.

Capture by Robert Tanenbaum read by Charles Leggett Has anyone else noticed a spectacular and embarrassing silliness among...

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Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman read by Kimberly Farr

.ed — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:21:41 +0000

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, chats up the Red Hook Ladies, attending “every last bean supper and blueberry breakfast of the season,” where she tries to befriend the wives of lobstermen by feigning enthusiasm for rummage sales. But every Fall, Iris returns to New York, to art and to work, and will never, in the eyes of the locals, be anything but a “from away”.

Iris’ father, Mr Kimmelbroad, is indeed “from away”: a real gentleman, a refugee violinist from Prague who still smells of polished wood, rosin, violets and 4711 Kolnisch Wasser. The family are immigrants: bustling, displaced, well educated.

Jane, mother of the groom, is a local: by temperament, by income and by genealogy. Jane is strong from “clomping up and down stairs and hauling laundry and vacuum cleaners.” Jane has been taking care of houses for the “from aways” for a long long time, as had her mother before her. One of these houses is Iris’, which she cleans in the summers and tends all year long.

She [would get] the furnace and the propane tank filled, turn on the water, take down the storm windows and put up the screens, mow the meadow and lawn, replace the water filter, have the piano tuned, and replenish staples like flour, sugar and the fancy teas ….

The story begins in the middle of the wedding, detailing the profusions of fresh flowers, mismatched vases, white lace tablecloths, blues band, bar, hanging lanterns, crab-cakes and lobster puffs and champagne of the reception at Grange Hall, where the mothers find out that the bride and groom are dead. What becomes of the mothers and their other children is part of the story of the wedding, because the wedding joins not only the bride and groom but the mothers; makes them, in Yiddish, Machatainisteh.

The Red Hat Society’s Domestic Goddess by Regina Hale Sutherland read by Cynthia Darlow Millie is a happy widow who is a member of...

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The Taken by Inger Ash Wolf, read by Bernadette Dunne

.ed — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:19:02 +0000

We find the troublesome, 62 year old Detective Inspector in bed after a back operation, popping Percocets and abusing the hospitality of her ex-husband’s new wife. Within a week she is thigh deep in a case of abduction, with a scene of crime and a bloody victim being broadcast live on line to her desktop. Within 2 weeks her wry, dry, black personality has generated several joyless encounters.

Consider Officer Childress from Toronto:

“Are you crazy!!? You don’t send the chief of the biggest division in Toronto a human hand to his desk!” (Hazel: “Where does he like to take delivery of such things??”)

Or Supervisor Ilunga: “Now he was looking at her as if trying to decide what part of her to rip off first.”

I told you to go home… ...We investigated this death. You arrived here with a foregone conclusion. What I’m doing is standing my ground against the devil, who appears before us in the form of an intuition. Every time someone walks in here with a feeling i want to reach for my gun. You know how much a hunch costs? A SOCO team with a vehicle big enough to get that boat and its oars back to a clean room, the hours to rephotograph the goddamn thing, the spectroscope, the refingerprinting of latents now 3 years old, I’ll start at $30,000 but I’m being optimistic. “(Hazel: “So its the cost that bothers you, or the revelation that you accepted a suicide wrap because its good for business?...”)

Or Sunderland, the editor of the Westmuir Record, hair plastered flat on his forehead by weather and stress:

Ah! Here she is: Shiva the Destroyer. And look! Here is her handiwork! ...You are feckless, power-hungry, thoughtless, arrogant and foolish… You think strong arming anyone you care to into doing your will is the way to run the Port Dundass PD…!? ” (Hazel: How was Atlanta? ...If you’re thinking of ruining me you better get in line; you have competitors.”)

By the end the whole affair has cost 30 grand plus one helicopter, but life in the Canadian provinces is back to normal, the “weekly B & E, the biweekly domestic, the monthly car theft.” (“It was so regular that the older cops joked they should have sign up sheets for perps to fill in before they committed the quota of small time offences” they were delegated in the county.)

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Too Close To Home by Linwood Barclay read by Christopher Lane

.ed — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 18:43:48 +0000

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 been many things: a painter, a salesman, a chauffeur. Now he is the guy who mows the lawn. The story moves quickly, in and out of the private indiscretions of a mayor, a driver, an ex-con, a hooker, husbands, wives, cuckolds.

The pace of discovery is faster than the pace of ordinary life: the difference is what we call “a thrill”.

Christopher Reich Rules of Deception A man, a woman, an accident a fate twisted and...

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The Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook read by Kimberly Dakin

.ed — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:41:02 +0000

Fiction that doubles as a helpful manual for out of work women, full of unemployment management tips and personality re-development exercises. Noreen, for example, is asked to say something about herself without reference to her job. She cannot. She can, however, use the fancy sneakers which she purchased at an ex-employee discount to find herself. Noreen is a very sensible girl, so it is not surprising that she spends the next month walking.

First she walks by herself. Then she meets up with a neighbor, and then with another neighbor. Each day, they walk and talk and learn about and from each other. Each day they count their steps.

The Wildwater Walking Club thus embarks upon a curious sort of benchmarking, with the footstep of an 8 1/2 inch sneaker as the only unit of measure. At the end of the month, they add up their miles and ‘trade them in’ for a trip to the Lavender Festival.

The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman read by Gabra Zackman There is a yummy baked goods kitchen feeling, because the...

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