A mystery where the clues are in the dialogue. A short tale but it does have a beginning, a middle and an end, though you must read with some intent. Enjoyed. ( )

Surprising complete for such a short story. I enjoyed it. ( )

The Last Page by Libby Fischer Hellmann and David J. Walker Narrated by, Mary Conway and James Lewis

In the short story The Last Page a not very well liked librarian, Barbara Adams, dies from what they are saying was a heart attack but she just happened to be standing at the top of the stairs when it happened, Julia’s mother & Barbara were friends and both think the death sounds suspicious so Julia decides to do some digging. I love a book that is set in a library and the author did a good job in researching the ALA’s privacy policy and the ins and outs of information available to librarians. All in all this was a good short cozy mystery and I would read others by this author and would read more with the character of Julia.

The narrator Mary Conway is new to me, it took me a little bit to get used to her voice it sounds a bit young yet has a roughness so for me it took a little to get used to, but by the end I was happy with her narration and would listen to others narrated by her.

Chicago Blues short story My Sweet Man &another story I didn’t catch the name of by, Libby Hellman and David J. Walker narrated by, James Lewis, both were way more gritty stories than the first one. The last story is extremely gritty and has a lot of language it was quite a departure from the first story being more of a cozy and the second one was more family secret type mystery, they seemed an odd pairing on the same audiobook. I enjoyed My Sweet Man but I think it would have been better without the final story.

The narrator James Lewis has a husky deep voice that I like, his voice is good for gritty mystery or noir would fit his voice well too. I would listen to more from this narrator.

All in all this short 3 hour audiobook is pretty good I really liked the first story, the second one was also good but the last one just didn’t do it for me. I would have rated this 4 stars if it had only been the first & second story but the third story brings it down to a three but will end up with 3 ½ stars for good narration. Would read more from this author and listen again to these narrators.

3 ½ Stars

I received this from the Audiobookjukebox and the author/publisher Fischer Hellmann Communications for a fair and honest review. ( )

This novella about a murder at a library is fairly engaging, but the mystery and its solution are second rate, to put it mildly. A law student plays detective, with the help of the library handyman, to find out who pushed the library director down the dark basement stairs late at night. The characters are stereotypes, at best.

Far better are the two short stories included (one by each author) from the CHICAGO BLUES collection. Both stories are far darker and more effective than the novella. “Your Sweet Man” is about a son picking up his father from prison—after serving 25 years for the murder of the boy’s mother. There is a lot going on here and the twist ending is pretty effective. More entertaining is “Weekend in the Country”, a fairly explicit tale about police officer mischief involving hookers (and a little fishing), that also includes a father-son element, though that part of the story doesn’t work as well as the story of a party gone very wrong. ( )