4.0

4.5 stars

I've been reading this series pretty much back-to-back, but there's actually a 6 year gap between the publication of #8 and that of #9. I'm hoping we don't have to wait nearly as long for #10.

This was an excellent mystery - not something the reader could figure out because they don't have access to all the information - but interesting and compelling nonetheless. In addition to the mystery, quite a bit of the book was devoted to the characters we've come to know. And a warning: there are several cliffhangers.

And now it's time for my regularly scheduled rant about the narrator. I really dislike the choice of her for this series. Her voices are too old and too snobby for the characters. And there's a real problem with her male voices - other than a few strange exceptions, she basically has a young-sounding one for men under 30 and an old-sounding one for men over 30. Since there are quite a few men in the book, all of the ones of a similar age sound alike. And that's tough for the listeners. I continue to maintain that I would enjoy the series more if Clare sounded more like a 30-something and Russ sounded more like a 50-something. The narrator adds at least 20 years to each of them and that is entirely disappointing.