CAR TALK CLASSICS: FOUR PERFECTLY GOOD HOURS (audiobook) by Tom and Ray Magliozzi

Published by HighBridge Audio in 2007
Duration: Approximately 4 hours

The hosts of NPR's Car Talk, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, offer highlights from their radio show with the theme of motherhood. If you are not familiar with the show, well it is unique. Two brothers who aren't really mechanics (but do have a lot of experience fixing cars) take calls about cars and car repair. They laugh and mercilessly kid one another and sometimes actually get around to offering advice on how to fix a car.

This a a 4 CD set featuring four entire hour-long episodes, which is different than many of their collections that are composed of a series of edited segments. While this is mostly highly entertaining, especially the segment with Martha Stewart (to me, Stewart can seem stuffy and stiff on her show. She rolls with these two jokesters and their enjoyable, sophomoric antics and holds her own and exhibits a quick wit) there are segments that I could only characterize as wearisome, such as the childhood letters home from summer camp from a staff member of the show, John "Bugsy" Lawlor. Thankfully, it is fairly short and the brothers get back to taking phone calls.

The calls in this one are interesting, including an Aussie who wants the recommendation of a good car to drive in Colorado, a woman who went behind the back of her regular mechanic and took her car someone else and my favorite, the man who has a faulty dashboard indicator that keeps telling him that his engine is out of oil. The only way he can get it to stop is to pound on his dashboard, a technique that causes the brothers to nearly fall out of their chairs as they envision him driving and angrily pounding away.

The third CD in this set is a Mother's Day tribute featuring their mother. Most if not all of this material is on another CD that I recently listened to and reviewed, CAR TALK: MATERNAL COMBUSTION. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.It can be found on Amazon.com here: Car Talk Classics: Four Perfectly Good Hours.

Reviewed on September 1, 2013.

SUSPECT by Robert Crais

SUSPECT May Be the Best Book That Crais Has Written

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons in 2013

Robert Crais is best known for his long-running Elvis Cole series, but he has consistently produced high-quality "stand-alone" novels as well (however, I just learned that the characters from this book will be part of the next Elvis Cole book). Suspect continues that tradition in a big way.

Scott James is a fairly young member of LAPD who is on the mend from a frightful shooting that resulted in injuries so severe that he was offered a chance to retire. While his physical injuries are real, they are not as profound as his psychological trauma. He was an up-and-coming officer, now he second guesses himself and, more importantly, cannot shake the feeling that he failed his partner who was killed in the incident. He is working the case on his own even as he trains to be a K-9 officer while he is recovering.

Robert Crais

Maggie is a retired German Shepherd who was trained to be a Marine and find Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). She was shot by a sniper while she was protecting her handler. Maggie is lost without her handler - he was her world. They formed a "pack" with just two members and she literally would die for him. But, when the sniper attacked she did not protect her "pack" well enough and her handler died.

Somehow, Maggie ended up in the LAPD K-9 training unit and she and Scott James get paired together - two gun-shy deeply injured souls who begin to open up their damaged little worlds to each other...

Crais' grasp of dog psychology makes this book work. You know how the book will end as soon as these two match up (Of course these two team up and work to redeem themselves to get the bad guys) but it is still a great story - the telling of the story is just as important as how it ends and Crais does a masterful job..

I rate this novel an enthusiastic 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: SUSPECT by Robert Crais.

Reviewed on September 1, 2013.

HEART of the HUNTER (audiobook) by Deon Meyer

Originally published in 2002.

English Audiobook version published in 2013 by HighBridge Audio

Read by Simon Vance

Duration: Approximately 11.5 hours

Deon Meyer's novel Heart of the Hunter features a very large black South African man named Thobela "Tiny" Mpayipheli who used to be part of the armed resistance movement to the South Africa's Apartheid government which collapsed in 1994. He was trained by the East German secret police and was part of multiple assassinations. He had a talent for violence. When the Apartheid regime ended he suddenly found himself on the outside, an anachronism. His skills were no longer needed and it would be better for the leadership if he just went away. So, he took his skill set to a drug lord but he soon realized there was no large sense of purpose, no lofty ideals in organized crime.

At that point Mpayipheli decided to bank his money, go straight and retire completely in South Africa. He met a woman with a young son, moved in and devoted himself to this new family they created. He took a job at a motorcycle repair place and everything seemed to be just about as perfect as anyone could make it.

That is until he gets word that a trusted old friend from the old days will die unless a hard drive is delivered to Lusaka, Zambia. He decides he has to go even though his wife begs him not to. When government officials stop him from boarding a plane to Zambia his old training kicks in and he escapes and goes on the run while trying to work his way to Zambia. He borrows a high-powered BMW motorcycle and finds that he is being pursued by government officials, the police and even a special forces unit. Meanwhile, South African officials want to know what is on the hard drive and everyone is scrambling to catch him and cover everything up before the truth gets out because someone has leaked the story to the media and now everyone is wondering who the mysterious big man on the BMW is and why he is running.

Deon Meyer. Photo by Krimidoedel

Deon Meyer is a South African writer who writes in the South African language Afrikaans. I only mention it because sometimes translated works are clunky, but this book is not. But, if you are not familiar with South Africa's Apartheid history and how South Africa's role in the larger Cold War between the U.S.S.R and NATO then I would imagine this book would be quite confusing.

The audiobook was read by the incomparable Simon Vance who covered a multitude of accents, male and female characters, children and old people (the old man who writes folk songs was particularly memorable) with ease. If Simon Vance were to read my grocery list it would sound important. When he reads (performs is a more accurate term) a book it is an experience.

While this was a good book, it was not a great one. The ending was too drawn out. Too many of the different threads of the story that were meticulously laid out in the first couple of hours never did really come together (the biker clubs that are sympathetic to the mysterious rider on the BMW are a great example. They are mentioned many times because they want to express some sort of biker solidarity but when they finally appear it is only for a few seconds and they just fade away).

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: 

HEART of the HUNTER (audiobook) by Deon Meyer.

Reviewed on August 28, 2013

Note: I received a copy of this audiobook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

SLEDGE (short story) by Ernie Lindsey

Published by Amazon Digital Services in 2013 as an e-book.
Estimated length is 35 printed pages.

Mary Walker is a private detective these days. Five years ago she was a police officer who confronted the serial killer known as "Sledge." He earned that name by killing three police officers with a sledge hammer. Mary was the only one to survive a confrontation with Sledge. He smashed her thigh bone with the hammer and then let the head of the hammer rest on her throat. She choked until she passed out and then, inexplicably, he left her there.

Walker quit the force and when the story starts she is a struggling private detective staking out the loading dock of a furniture factory when she discovers that Sledge is back and he has unfinished business with her...

I rate this short story 4 out of 5 stars. Walker is an interesting character, the action is solid, a mood of foreboding and dread is created and there is a bit of a twist at the end.

This short story can be found on Amazon.com here: Sledge by Ernie Lindsey.

Reviewed on August 24, 2013.

BACK of BEYOND (Cody Hoyt #1) by C.J. Box

Published in 2011 by Minotaur Books

A person who left a comment on one of my Amazon reviews told me about C.J. Box and gave me the title to his first book featuring Joe Pickett. I found it at the library and I was hooked. If you like Michael Connelly or Robert Crais you will love C.J. Box. If you like Tony Hillerman, you will enjoy Box's descriptions of the local landscape and the people of Wyoming and Montana.

Back of Beyond is the beginning of a new series, not a part of the outstanding Joe Pickett series. It features Cody Hoyt, a broken-down alcoholic of a cop who drank himself out of a job as a big city cop in Colorado and is now in Montana, in danger of losing his last chance job as a cop.  The story starts out with as strong of an opening as I have ever read: "The night before Cody Hoyt shot the county coroner, he was driving without purpose in this county Ford Expedition as he often did these days. He was agitated and restless, chain-smoking cigarettes until his throat was raw and sore."

So, that's pretty much Cody Hoyt the whole book through. He is talented, headstrong and pathetic. The only good thing he sees about life is his high school-aged son who lives with his ex-wife back in Colorado. But, there's a good cop underneath all of the junk that comes with his troubles. When his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor is found dead in a remote cabin he knows it was not the drunken suicide of a man that has fallen off the wagon. He goes against his bosses and investigates on his own and gets himself suspended (after he shoots the coroner during his investigation).

Hoyt continues to search and the sparse clues he finds point to a larger conspiracy involving a wilderness outfitter that leads tours into the rugged back country of Yellowstone National Park. The problem is that his son is on that same trip (yes, it's a giant coincidence, but I went with it). Hoyt has to catch them (he lives in Montana but he is hardly a woodsman), figure out who the murderer is and stop him or her before anyone else gets killed, especially his son.

Hoyt never becomes a likable character, but there is a bit of redemption in his actions as the book progresses. The supporting characters, like the retired wilderness guide Bull Mitchell and his partner Larry make the book work.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Back of Beyond by C.J. Box.

Reviewed on August 17, 2013.

CAR TALK: MATERNAL COMBUSTION: CALLS ABOUT MOMS and CARS (audiobook) by Tom and Ray Magliozzi

Published by HighBridge Audio in 2005
Duration: 1 hour, 11 minutes

The hosts of NPR's Car Talk, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, offer highlights from their radio show with the theme
of motherhood. If you are not familiar with the show, well it is unique. Two brothers who aren't really mechanics (but do have a lot of experience fixing cars) take calls about cars and car repair. They laugh and mercilessly kid one another and sometimes actually get around to offering advice on how to fix a car.

Some of the highlights feature their own mother as an in-studio guest, the rest are from callers. Topics include a mom who does not want to break down and buy a mini-van, a mom who wants her sixteen-year-old to buy a sports car and my favorite - the older mom who plans to drive her 1977 Datsun 510 station wagon from Houston to Massachusetts that prompts a hilarious side bet between the brothers.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Car Talk: Maternal Combustion: Calls About Moms and Cars.
Reviewed on August 15, 2013.

DON'T GO (audiobook) by Lisa Scottoline

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 the duration of his tour in Afghanistan and when he decides to serve another year because they are in such desperate need of doctors with his special skills.

Lisa Scottoline

The problem with Don't Go is that these two stories do not mesh particularly well. The smaller, but much stronger story is the one in Afghanistan. Scottoline has done some research here and she tells it in a compelling and moving way. The characters have real zing.

On the other hand, the Philadelphia characters are very two dimensional and Scanlon's sister-in-law has an obsessive need to keep the baby on its nap schedule (and the never-ending conversations about the nap schedule) that borders on mental illness. When a father returns home from more than a year in Afghanistan with a horrible injury and wants to see the baby you immediately let him see the baby and throw the @$&%! nap schedule out the window for the day!

Scottoline throws in a murder mystery that just does not fit, but it does little to liven up the home front part of the story. However, the investigation by Scanlon is so haphazard and so full of gut feelings that it felt contrived - like a separate story was grafted to the main story just to add length and a little punch. Major family confrontations flare up and are solved so quickly that it seemed clear that Scottoline was trying to pad the story or really had no sense of how she wanted to end it. For what it's worth, I would have been very happy to have had the entire book just about the adventures of  Dr. Scanlon in Afghanistan.

Jeremy Davidson read the book and he did a solid, if not exciting job. He did a good job with the French accents of Scanlon's wife and his sister-in-law. Oddly, it is never really explained how Scanlon meets and marries this French lady (or, if it is mentioned, it was glossed over quickly and I missed it). One of the characters is mentioned as having a North Philly accent. I am admittedly no expert on Philadelphia, but to me it sounded like a combination of California surfer dude and Australian.

Note: I received a download copy of this audiobook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I rate this audiobook 3 out of 5 stars. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: DON'T GO by Lisa Scottoline.

Reviewed on August 14, 2103.