mystery – Page 22

Review of Small Favor by Jim Butcher

SFFaudio Review

small_favor Small Favor
By: Jim Butcher Read by James Marsters
Book 10 of The Dresden Files
Audible Download – 13 Hours 50 Mins [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible / Buzzy Multimedia
ISBN-10: 0143143395
ISBN-13: 978-0143143390
Themes: / Fantasy / Mystery / Magic / Private Detective / Wizard / Noir /

No one’s tried to kill Harry Dresden for almost an entire year, and his life finally seems to be calming down. For once, the future looks fairly bright. But the past casts one hell of a long shadow. An old bargain has placed Harry in debt to Mab, monarch of the Winter Court of the Sidhe, the Queen of Air and Darkness-and she’s calling in her marker. It’s a small favor he can’t refuse…one that will trap Harry Dresden between a nightmarish foe and an equally deadly ally, and one that will strain his skills-and loyalties-to their very limits. It figures. Everything was going too well to last…

Before I start let me say that I am HUGE fan of the Dresden series having read all the paperbacks and watched the failed television series. That being said Buzzy Multimedia and James Marsters actually manage to improve the book each time they release their audibook version of a Dresden novel and in my opinion Small Favor is their best effort yet.

The 10th Book in the Series opens with Harry enjoying a peaceful moment with his friends that soon comes to an end when he is reminded in a very Dresden-esque way that he has a debt to repay and the favor is being cashed in. Harry is quickly thrust into a situation full of plot twists that has him squaring off against evil faries, demon possessed people, and in the middle of the largest supernatural power grab ever. Whats worse is he is tasked with saving a crime lord who he has grudgingly partnered with in the past.

The “Small Favor” referenced in the title is a debt owed to an evil fairy who in the opening of the book has Harry’s back pressed literally up against a wall. Faced with angering Mab, fighting off a fairy Hit Squad looking for blood, and an angry Detective Murphy; Dresden wisely shuts up and commits to the favor. What unfolds is an amazing ride with a decisive battle for the future of mankind being waged and Harry is in the middle of it and like most of the other books in the Dresden series Small Favor focuses on this conflict and the difference that one intuitive magic wielding detective can make.

One part Sam Spade two parts Merlin that is the recipe for Harry Dresden a detective able to put the pieces together and is not afraid to charge in staff blazing. As with Jim Butcher’s other novels in the series Harry is able to follow clues that others would miss and often times it leads him the right direction, if not a moment or too late. Intuition aside the thing I like best about Harry is his ability to face overwhelming odds with a well placed quip. Small Favor is also a bit of reunion of sorts with some of the most notable characters from the series making an appearance; Johnny Marcone, Hendrix, Kincaid, Ivy, The Denarians, Lucio, Michael and the other Knights, Thomas, Murphy, and even mouse.

With epic battle scenes and rich attention to detail; the world of Chicago comes alive and it is hard not wonder if there are indeed evil fey, demons, and holy sword wielding knights waging war in the streets. One of the best things about the book and the series in general is the perspective the story takes. Written as narrative it feels more like recounting of past events rather than a piece of fantasy. This perspective combined with the masterful reading of James Marsters makes this an incredibly enjoyable book and even better audiobook.

When Buzzy Multimedia selected James Marsters to read the book they must have held a casting call or something because he has the perfect voice. He absolutely embodies Harry Dresden furthermore James Marsters doesn’t just read the story he acts it out. For instance when it says in the book that Harry roared out FUEGO James Marsters actually does just bellowing it like he was hurling a fireball at an evil Fairy or Demon.

Attention to detail is apparant throughout the book and there do not seem be any errors in recording, mispronunciations, stumbling over words or anything to disturb the listening. In addition to the excellent production quality the audio levels were very clear and even throughout and when James Marster’s got loud there was no crackle in the speakers.

The worst thing about this book is that is comes to an end. As I said in the begining I am a huge fan of the Dresden series and while I believe that the first-time reader could start with Small Favor and enjoy it thoroughly. It is probably best if the first time reader begins with the first book as there are details about each of the major character’s explained throughout the series. That said if you are a fan of the Dresden Files series pick up Small Favor if you are not yet acquainted with the series do yourself a “small favor” and start at the begining with Storm Front.

Posted by Mark Flavin

Aural Noir Review of This Won’t Kill You by Rex Stout

Aural Noir: Review

This Won’t Kill You
By Rex Stout; Read by David Elias
1 Cassette – Approx. 60 Minutes [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: DH Audio
Published: 1998
ISBN: 0886468655
Themes: / Mystery / Murder / Crime / Baseball /

Nero Wolfe couldn’t care less about baseball, even the World Series final game–until four players are drugged. Now a team’s chances, and maybe their star players, are dead. Evidence is hard to find, so Archie Goodwin dodges fists and acid while the boss keeps one little secret from the police.

There’s a whole team of suspects for Nero Wolfe to confront in this peppy locked stadium mystery.

Narator David Elias is terrific, filling his lungs for the resonant corpulence of Wolfe’s voice, then higher pitching and faster talking-it for the energetic Archie Goodwin. As well, Elias offers many variation’s on accents and voices for the numerous other minor characters filling out this novelette. He also ain’t bad with a falsetto. The abridgment is very skillful. Rex Stout’s plots are often highly complex, and can lead a reader to be confused as it is. Whatever was expunged for this edition, this audiobook abridgment is easy to follow.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Diane … The Twin Peaks Tapes Of Agent Cooper

SFFaudio Review

Diane … The Twin Peaks Tapes Of Agent Cooper
By Mark Frost and David Lynch (uncredited); Performed by Kyle MacLachlan
1 Cassette – 43 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Simon & Shuster Audio
Published: 1990
ISBN: 067173573X
Themes: / Mystery / Fantasy / Horror / Murder / Crime /

Re-experience the mystery of Twin Peaks in an all new way. The Cooper Tapes. The private world of Special Agent Dale Cooper, previously reserved for one woman…Diane, including notes and stories never revealed on television. From the man in the black suit, Twin Peaks, in his own words.

Diane … The Twin Peaks Tapes Of Agent Cooper is a collection of 39 audio excerpts from the TV series of Agent Cooper recording notes into his voice activated micro mac recorder. All the selections are addressed to “Diane” (presumably his assistant). This is not an audiobook, instead it is more of a quasi-audio drama. If you’ve seen the television series, you’ve heard most of this already.

I distinctly remember purchasing this television tie-in production in the fall of 1990. Twin Peaks-mania was at its peak. I had caught the show’s dynamite first season during the summer re-runs. Series star Kyle MacLachlan had just hosted Saturday Night Live and the first Gulf War was gearing up – (which due to the endless war news update preemptions helped to ultimately doom the show). I suspect it will be very difficult for those who haven’t seen the Twin Peaks television series to follow the story in Diane … The Twin Peaks Tapes Of Agent Cooper – but even if they can, they’ll still be left unsatisfied. There is no ultimate resolution in this single cassette, even if there was to be some in the final episode of the second season. The tape’s story follows FBI special agent Dale Cooper from about 24 hours before the events of the pilot episode to the first episode of the second season. Included are many recordings done on screen and a few recorded specifically for this quasi-audio drama.

In performing the production Kyle MacLachlan is his charismatic self. Anything this guy touches from the Paul Atredies role in the film version of Dune, to the lead in the undersung The Trigger Effect, to his role on Desperate Housewives, I’m up for it. Production wise the new material is fairly well matched to the original soundtrack clips: Ambient noise, wind, road noise, crickets and varied distance from the microphone. Only rarely is another voice heard (notables include Michael Ontkean and Kimmy Robertson). The cassette opens and closes with Angelo Badalamenti’s haunting musical score for the series. This piece of ephemera is littler more than a curiosity, but I quite like it.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #020

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #020 – Today Jesse and Scott talk with James Powell, a terrific Mystery, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Crime writer. He was first published in April 1966 and has approximately 140 published short stories in such magazines as Playboy and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. But most of his tales, including his most famous have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine! His tales are relentlessly logical, often hilarious, and swift. He is an absolute master of the short story. Powell is what’s known in the business as a “Pussycat writer” which means he doesn’t put sex and violence on the page, it all happens off-stage. Look for his latest tale, Clowntown Pajamas in the February 2009 issue of EQMM.

Talked about on today’s show:
A Cozy For The Jack-O-Lanterns, A Dirge For Clowntown, Clowntown Pajamas, Monaco, France, Crippen & Landru, The Friends Of Hector Jouvet |READ IT|, Peter Sellers, A Murder Coming, the review in which I first mention A Dirge For Clowntown rules for what Powell calls “Elf Economics”, The Theft Of The Valuable Bird, Midnight Pumpkins (Cinderella as Hard Fantasy), Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock style stories, Clowntown Pajamas, the hidden but clear rules of clown and mine behavior, Toronto, 1940s, QUESTION: Who does James Powell read? ANSWER: Charles Dickens, Jorge Luis Borges, J.R.R. Tolkien, and lately Michael Swanwick‘s The Edge Of The World, as wells as A Passage To India, E.M. Forster, Bouchercon, Frederic Dannay, Santa’s Way, The Tamerlane Crutch (a takeoff on the Maltese Falcon and A Christmas Carol), Lawrence Block, Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, The Quest For Creeping Charlie, 1950s, George Orwell, Winter Hiatus, Iced: The New Noir Anthology of Cold, Hard Fiction edited by Peter Sellers, The Dawn Of Captain Sunset (a superhero champion of the elderly), round robin style short stories, The Best Fantasy Stories Of The Year: 1989 edited by Orson Scott Card and Martin H. Greenberg (ISBN: 1556561431), the difficulty of writing a Science Fiction Mystery story, John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, of A Dirge For Clowntown Scott says: “[it is] one of the finest mysteries I’ve ever read set in a different world,” Dercum Audio, Durkin Hayes, The Book Of Lies, Brad Meltzer, A Murder Coming edited by Peter Sellers (ISBN: 0886466377), calling all publishers: COLLECT JAMES POWELL!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Orthopedic Horseshoes – James Morrow, Geoffrey A. Landis, & rememberences of Hal Clement

SFFaudio Online Audio

The episode features scientist/author Diane Turnshek talking with hosts Al and Herb about fostering young writers, first conventions, and bad singing. Al interviews Nebula and World Fantasy Award winner James Morrow about epiphenomenon, really cool titles, The Philosopher’s Aprentice, and The Last Witchfinder. Herb has a chat with poet and Nebula winner Mary Turzillo, and NASA scientist and Hugo & Nebula winning author Geoffrey A. Landis; covering the nature of thought, Marvin Minsky, Joyce, Beckett, David Ives, rocket science, and fond memories of Hal Clement.

In addition, the November episode of Orthopedic Horseshoes, “It Takes Two Murders to Make a Straight Line” is available at ThinkTwice . The show features a discussion of mysteries (including SF mysteries) and mystery conventions, with guests jan howard finder speaking on Arthur Upfield’s mysteries, ethicist Dr. Gordon Snow on security and the future of detective fiction, and renowned filker and Holmes scholar Carl William Thiel on why we love Sherlock Holmes.

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Posted by The Time Traveler of the Time Traveler Show

Aural Noir Review of The Colorado Kid by Stephen King

Aural Noir: Review

This review was originally posted on Monday, November 14, 2005 on our now merged AuralNoir.com site.

The Colorado Kid
By Stephen King; Read by Jeffrey DeMunn
4 CDs – 4 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio
Published: 2005
ISBN: 0743550404
Themes: / Mystery / Hard Case Crime / Murder / Reporters / Newspaper / Maine /

In brief, Stephen King’s latest novel is a good one, though I don’t feel it fits well into the Hard Case Crime mold. Details? Here they are:

Two old newspaper men, both approaching retirement, tell a female intern the story of a man who was found dead on the coast of the Maine island on which they live. They reveal clue after clue that they had put together along with a forensics graduate student that worked with police back when it happened. And that’s… pretty much it. No grisly private eyes, no grifters, and no real danger for the main characters, which is why I think the book is a strange fit for the Hard Case Crime line of novels.

Still, this is a short Stephen King novel reminiscent of an earlier King short novel called “The Body”, on which the film Stand by Me was based. There is much going on here between the characters. The old men are approaching retirement and are sharing their years of investigative reporting experience to the intern. The intern is eager to be accepted. The story of the investigation, the clues, the forensics – all extremely interesting in King’s hands, even though “action” is not a word that I’d use to describe it. The novel is filled with the depth of character that Stephen King is famous for, and I enjoyed it even though it was not quite what I expected.

Jeffrey DeMunn is the perfect choice to read The Colorado Kid. He read one of King’s earlier novels – Dreamcatcher – and also starred in what was easily the best Stephen King miniseries – Storm of the Century, where he got to use his excellent Maine accent. He used that accent in this reading, too, and as the island and its inhabitants are characters in themselves, DeMunn’s added authenticity was welcome and very effective. It is a gem of a performance.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson