DWD's Reviews

Originally Published in 1996. Audio edition published by Books in Motion in 2002. Read by Rusty Nelson Duration: 9 hours, 17 minutes Unabridged Posadas County New Mexico Undersheriff Bill Gastner is having a bad night. He almost gets shot substituting as the policeman on duty at the local high school basketball game, the suspect dies in custody and then someone shoots and kills a deputy sheriff and nearly kills a reporter on the side of the road with a shotgun. The investigation begins in earnest following the slimmest of leads with Gastner and company looking for a killer before the only known witnesses dies and looking for another missing witness before the killer strikes again... This audiobook starts out like a rocket but the second act gets bogged down in the procedural minutiae of this police procedural. The third act picks up though and the book ends on a strong note. The reading by Rusty Nelson was solid except when he tries to read in Spanish. The author's S

Published in 2016 by Blackstone Audio Read by Chris Andrew Ciulla Duration: 10 hours, 31 minutes Unabridged Gus Murphy is a retired cop whose life has completely fallen apart after the sudden death of his son due to an undiagnosed heart problem. His marriage fell apart, he quit the force and now works in a hotel as security and a shuttle van driver in exchange for a room. A low-level mobster-type seeks him out to hire him as a private detective to look into the brutal death of his son by torture. Murphy is not particularly thrilled to look into it and emphasizes that he is not a private detective. But, his emotions get the best of him because this mobster is also a dad who has lost his son so he agrees to look into it, figuring that he would uncover nothing. But, it starts to look like the police just gave a cursory investigation and missed some serious clues. When his "client" shows up dead, Gus Murphy knows that he has stumbled into something that he has to see thr

When Joe Met Nate...    Originally Published in 2003 Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett is making his rounds when he sees a hunter open fire on a herd of Elk, killing many more than a hunting license would allow. It turns out he is the local administrator of federal lands, the man who approves permits, makes rental agreements for grazing or logging and the like. He escapes Joe's custody for a few minutes, only to be found pinned to a tree - the victim of an attack with a hunting bow. The local sheriff has a suspect in mind - a local anti-government type that Joe has heard of but has not met - Nate Romanowski (for those who have not read the series, Joe and Nate become de facto  partners in many of the books in this series). Joe suspects that Nate is not the real killer and goes off on his own to do a little detective work on the side. He has his eyes on a wandering group of anti-government activists who have set up camp in a federal forest. And, they include the biological

Originally Published in 1953. Louis L'Amour (1908-1988) Tom Kedrick is a professional soldier who doesn't have a war to fight in right now. But, he has been hired by an acquaintance to lead a crew of hired guns to clear out a group of horse thieves and ne'er do wells from a big parcel of land that is opening up for settlement. But, when Kedrick arrives the whole thing just doesn't feel right so he starts to nose around some on his own. W hen Kedrick checks out his opponents, he discovers that they are settlers with families, not thieves and Kedrick is sure that things are not the way that he was told when he was hired on... This is, by far, the worst Louis L'Amour book that I have read and it is my understanding that it was one of his first. The beginning of the book is dreadfully slow and L'Amour adds characters at a furious rate throughout the book. There must be at least 40 named characters in this 188 page book and most of them deliver only a lin

Originally published in book form in 2001. Unabridged audio edition published in 2008 by Brilliance Audio. Read by Dick Hill. Duration: 14 hours, 21 minutes. Jack Reacher starts out the story as a wanted man in Texas after he defends himself in a bar fight with a bully who turned out to be a police officer. He flees his hotel right before the police arrive and hitches a ride in record time. Even better - the driver is an extremely attractive woman who is heading far out of town towards the desert border with Mexico in Echo County, Texas. But, as Reacher and the driver talk it turns out that Reacher's good luck in hitching a ride was helped because the driver is looking for someone to deal with her rich, abusive husband who is being released from prison soon and Reacher looks like the tough sort of man who can deal with him. She lists all of the reasons why she can't involve the police, lawyers or simply flee. As she explains her situation, and after he meets her young

Published in 1993 by Books on Tape. Read by Mary Peiffer Duration: 7 hours, 42 minutes Unabridged I've been reading this series on and off again for the better part of 30 years. At one point I was trying to read them all in order but then it just got to be random books when I came across one. Lately, I'd forgotten all about them. But, I saw some sort of article about how the end of the series was imminent and I thought I would start the series all over again (I certainly didn't remember much of this one - just the fact that the burglar mentioned in the title growled as she ransacked the place).  Kinsey Millhone has been hired to find the sister of a woman who needs to have her sister sign a legal document so that a will can be settled. Kinsey starts her search and finds that the sister has disappeared. She traveled to Florida but didn't make it to her condo and no one has any idea where she really is. Kinsey digs further and finds that death and mayhem seems