I received this book free from the narrator, Karen Commins. Thanks Karen, for the chance to try out a new author and narrator.
First of all, a couple of caveats: #1 – I’m not a fan of law/courtroom procedurals. At all. Especially dry, texbook-like procedurals, which this was and I felt like the author was ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’. Add to that, the delivery was so slow and dry even during the few action scenes. #2 – I compare every single narrator I listen to to Anna Fields/Kate Fleming whose gift was to effortlessly give genuine and artful characterizations to every player in the books she read no matter how big or small their part may have been. I think anyone who narrates professionally or wants to, should study Anna/Kate at length.
Not to say that this narrator is not enjoyable. I do like Karen’s voice and tone overall but for this type of book, I thought she was a poor choice. Even during the action scenes or more emotional parts, there seemed to be no real change of the tone or meter of her voice. Also, she read very, very slowly. I somewhat fixed this by upping the speed of my Audible app to x1.25 which I felt helped. Also, several of her characterizations were either totally wrong for the character (e.g. Irwin) or just plain old over the top (e.g. Naya, Flora)
While the plot itself wasn’t half-bad the writing was sub-par in my opinion. I am not a fan of the ‘See Spot run’ method of writing and an awful lot of this book was formatted in that way, unfortunately. Law is number one on my list of those professions that are hard make interesting though many authors have succeeded in doing this such as Scott Turow or John Grisham, etc. Unfortunately, Ms. Miller didn’t show too much imagination regarding events not in the courtroom or in Sasha’s offices and totally irrelevant minutiae (legal stuff and even the decor) gets in the way of the story. Readers are treated to the same lack of color and imagination on the outside of the courtroom as they are on the inside.
Pet peeve number one – using canned voices for phone conversations. Hate, hate, hate this.
Pet peeve number two – Why, oh why, do some authors insist on creating characters who are nearly perfect: Sasha is apparently a hot little number (half Russian and half Irish) who not only is a kickass lawyer but also an ass kicker. She is very proficient in some sort of martial arts and even disarms an air marshal, breaking his nose and finger in the process. Um…wow?
A last pet peeve of mine – the title which apparently was thought up based on the Turow method of naming a book. Too easy and frankly, lazy.