DWD's Reviews

  Originally published in 1994. Audiobook version published in 2016 by HarperAudio. Read by Teri Schnaubelt. Duration: 9 hours, 5 minutes. Unabridged. Back in the 1990's, I worked at a used book store. A copy of Everywhere That Mary Went came in. I was intrigued so I read it.  After that, whenever a fan of legal thrillers would come in and ask if we had anything new or a little different I'd hand them that book. Soon enough, we were sold out and we kept on selling them whenever they came in. I even talked a group of ladies to use it for their book discussion group and they loved it. I sort of feel like I had a part in promoting Lisa Scottoline when she was starting out. Eventually, this one book grew into a series of eleven books and I read most of them (maybe all of them - it's been a while).  While I was scrolling through my possible choices of my next audiobook, I decided to go back and revisit this series.  Mary DiNunzio is a lawyer from a working class backgrou...

Published by MacMillan Audio in 2013 Read by Jeremy Davidson Duration: 11 hours, 25 minutes Unabridged Lisa Scottoline breaks new ground in Don't Go . For years, she has written courtroom dramas and legal thrillers. This time, Scottoline tries to tie together two distinct stories featuring Dr. Mike Scanlon, a podiatrist from Philadelphia. One is the story of an Army doctor doctor serving in Afghanistan and the other is a murder mystery.  Scanlon is a member of the National Guard and when the story starts he has been called up and is serving in Afghanistan. Podiatric surgeons are in high demand because of the common use of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) that explode under military vehicles and damage the feet of the passengers. Mike has left a wife and an infant child back in Philadelphia. His wife dies from a household accident and his wife's sister and her husband care for the child as he rushes back home to make funeral arrangements. They agree to care for her for t...

  Mary DiNunzio is back for more. Published in 2004 by HarperCollins  Lisa Scottoline I have a soft spot for Lisa Scottoline. Many years ago I was working in a used book store when I ran across her first book, Everywhere that Mary Went and I loved it. We had two copies of that book and we must have re-sold them a dozen times after I started recommending them to people who asked for someone new to read. Pretty soon, Lisa Scottoline was one of our hottest items - we even special-ordered in some new copies! I like to think that I had a very, very small part in her success, even though the used book store is now defunct. Killer Smile continues on with several familiar themes in Scottoline's books. Once again Bennie Rosato's all female (with the exception of an office manager) law firm swings into action in a case involving the Italian neighborhods of Phialadelphia. Mary DiNunzio, Scottoline's original character is back with a pro bono case based in hi...

Interesting premise but it often ends up being a glorified romance novel Published by MacMillan Audio in 2009 Read by Mary Stuart Masterson Duration: 9 hours, 27 minutes Unabridged In a planned departure from her normal books featuring female attorneys, Lisa Scottoline brings us the story of a single mother reporter (Ellen) and her adopted son. At the beginning of Look Again Ellen glances at one of those "Have you seen this child?" cards that come in the mail and she notes that the child looks just like her adopted son, Will. A little digging by Ellen uncovers several clues that her son may indeed be a missing child, which leads us to the key point of tension in the book: If it turned out your child was actually someone else's child, would you tell and lose the child or would you stay quiet and leave another parent in pain? Narrator  Mary Stuart Masterson I have been a big fan of Scottoline's work since I discovered Everywhere That Mary Went when ...

Published in 2007. Read by Alfred Molina. Duration: 7 hours, 30 minutes. Unabridged. The Chopin Manuscript is not really a great story but an interesting premise and veteran actor Alfred Molina does a fantastic job performing this audiobook. This book was given an "Audie Award" (2008 Audiobook of the Year) and that is entirely due to the masterful ability of Molina to mimic accents and create voices for literally dozens of characters. His performance was much better than the material he was given to perform. The idea behind the story is pretty simple - Jeffery Deaver ( The Lesson of Her Death ), a well-known writer of action thrillers started out an international thriller by writing the first chapter. Then the story was handed off to another author and a chapter was added (15 authors in total) until it got back Deaver who wrote the concluding chapter. The story is a thrill-a-minute ride that has a herky-jerky nature. Every author seemed to be out to move the story alon...

This may be the end of this series Originally published in 2010.   Bennie Rosato and her law firm full of female lawyers is back for what may very well be the last installment of this long-running series. This will seem like a series of spoilers, but you can find all of these items on the back cover of the book: Bennie Rosato's long-lost twin (introduced in the book Mistaken Identity ) turns out to be an evil twin who kidnaps Bennie, buries her alive and takes over her life. So, ignoring the fact that seems that the premise was stolen straight from the "Plot Ideas That Ought To Have Been Retired" Hall of Fame, this book just does not have the zing of the others in the series. I love these characters and have been reading about them ever since I read Everywhere That Mary Went back in the 1990s. I worked at a book store at the time and whenever a fan of legal thrillers would come in and ask if we had anything new that was a little different I'd hand them that boo...