Similar to a 30s noir detective story, but with sorcery, swords and magic. ( )

I've been putting off reading this for a while and I wish I hadn't because it turned out to be a rather lovely adventure. This book is all about the storyline, it had enough interest and suspense to keep me reading and guessing. As others have mentioned it is a combo of the fantasy and mystery genres. ( )

DNF I was uncomfortable how the female characters were described in this book, the author seems obsessed with describing females by their breasts and most of the women he meets have been raped. I could have coped with this as the mystery was slightly interesting But the thing which made me put the book down is the hero meeting a diseased goddess and making love to her ( )

I gave it a second shot and liked it much better the second time around. ( )

This was one of my audiobook series-sampling listens, to see if I might want to pursue this series in print someday.

Audio Narration
The narrator is Stefan Rudnicki. Listening to him was a relief after the narrator of the last audiobook I listened to! Rudnicki reads with what I would consider a normal pace. His tone is matter-of-fact and not overly dramatized. He has a distinctively deep voice that’s pleasant to listen to, but I did think that negatively affected his ability to do different character voices. His male voices were ok, but his female voices were a little painful. They sounded too pouty, angry, and/or flirty, more so than I thought was intended by the text. Even so, I liked him better than many narrators I’ve listened to, and I would happily listen to another book he had narrated.

Story
The story centers around a detective named Eddie LaCrosse. We start off with a mission that has little relevance to the main story, I guess mostly to provide an introduction to the character and the world he lives in. The main story picks up shortly after that and involves Eddie investigating a murder for his best friend, the King of the city where he grew up. Apparently the Queen has (I’m putting it in spoiler tags for excessive grossness more than for spoilerishness; it’s revealed relatively early) murdered, cooked, and eaten their infant son.

This feels like urban fantasy. The word choices, the expressions, and the attitudes all feel much more modern than the setting actually is, but the world’s inhabitants ride horses and fight with swords. It was a little jarring at first, but I got used to it. Eddie has what I would consider the stereotypical detective’s tragic past, but at least he isn’t an alcoholic, so that was something. There isn’t a lot of magic in the book. There is some, but I can’t explain it without spoiling the story.

I chuckled several times at the humor, but this book can't stand too much logical scrutiny. Things tend to happen too coincidentally and/or conveniently. The main character does things that hardly seem like the best way to go about solving the mystery, yet his actions lead him to one tenuous clue after another until he eventually finds the answers. Meanwhile, he fails to predict some obvious things and gets into trouble I would have considered avoidable.

Although this is the first book in a series, it tells a complete story. It worked well for me as an audio, holding my attention but not demanding too much of it so that I could easily cross-stitch while I listened. I don’t think I’ll keep this series on my list to follow up on in print someday, but I wouldn’t be afraid to try the author’s work again either. ( )