Enjoyable group of stories expertly narrated

I really enjoyed this collection of mm mystery/romance short stories and novellas, which all benefit from expert narration by Kale Williams and Joel Leslie.

The standout of the collection is Dal MacLean’s A Country For Old Men, an atmospheric and beautifully written second-chance love story set on the isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Joel Leslie obviously did his homework on the Gaelic pronunciations and does a great job with the Scottish accents. The story centres around a deeply closeted police inspector called to investigate a murder involving a centuries old artifact – which brings him face-to-face with the love he left behind five years before.

I read and enjoyed C.S. Poe’s Lights, Camera, Murder a couple of years back when the author published it separately. Hard-boiled PI Rory Byrne is hired to go undercover on the set of a TV show to investigate the theft of a script – but his job is complicated when he begins to fall for the show’s gorgeous and talented star, Marion Roosevelt. The mystery is clever and well-thought out, and the romance is sweet. I think the author had intended this to be the start of a series, but she’s been focused on Memento Mori and Magic & Steam the last few years, so I imagine it’s on the back-burner.

In Meg Perry’s Twelve Seconds a journalist receives a mysterous phone call the night before the next shuttle launch – the shuttle (unmanned) explodes just after take-off, and whoever placed the phone call has disappeared. I enjoyed the mystery and the romance in this one, even if there are a couple of plot holes.

Nicole Kimberling’s Entrée to Murder is a cosy mystery featuring a chef who finds a dead body in the basement of his restaurant, and S.C Wynne’s Reality Bites is, I think, the only mystery I’ve ever read in which the murder victim was mauled by a tiger! In Z.A. Maxfield’s Pepper the Crime Lab, Lonnie’s first night in his new apartment is disturbed by a dog’s constant barking coming from next door – and in the morning it appears her owner was murdered. With one of Lonnie’s knives. With the help of his other neighbour – a handsome ex-cop – Lonnie sets about finding out who tried to frame him.

The final story is Josh Lanyon’s Stranger in the House, in which teacher and aspiring artist Miles Tuesday inherits a mansion in Montreal – but something doesn’t feel right. The thing that does feel right, however, is the presence of his childhood crush, art dealer Laurie Palmer. The mystery isn’t expecially complex, but I liked the main characters and their romance.

I did, however, find myself scratching my head over the L.B Gregg story, Blind Man’s Buff. When I first the group who were going to play some kind of game in an abandoned shopping centre I assumed this was a YA story – then I realised they were thirty-something teachers! Which made no sense to me. And neither did the plot, although I admit I lost interest early on.


It's a good collection on the whole, and the narrators do an excellent job. I've been meaning to listen to it for ages and saw it was available in Audible Plus, so I picked it up. But it's great value for a single credit, so I'll probably get myself a copy when it leaves the Plus catalogue.

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superb collection of MM 'who done it's

I loved both narrators, such excellent diction!!
The variety of stories kept me going during some tedious travel delays.
Definitely worth a re-listen.
highly recommended

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Very good book

I enjoyed the short stories, some more than others. My favourites were 12 Seconds and Pepper the Crime Lab. A Country for Old Men was in the middle for me, though it became more interesting towards the end. There were a couple that had me checking the time until the end. Both narrators were really good. As a whole, I enjoyed the book and wouldn't mind if my two favourite stories were turned into full-length novels.

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Excellent and repays rereading

Just listened again to this collection of novellas and was struck by how very good it is.

The two readers, Kale Williams and Joel Leslie, are as always wonderful in all respects except the ability to pronounce French words. But for me at least that was not a deal breaker.

Some of the short stories are somewhat slow burners, like 12 seconds, and I actually enjoyed those more the second time around. Some of the humour, eg in Pepper the Crime Lab, comes out more clearly when one isn't in a rush to get to the denouement. The only one I couldn't bring myself to reread was the Dal MacLean novella, a Country for Old Men, which I remembered as a bit melodramatic and contrived. Whereas for some people I know it was the highlight of the collection, which just shows how different people can be.

It's very hard to say which story is now my favourite, even though typically my favourite authors in the bunch would be Josh Lanyon and C S Poe. Great characters, great stories, good sex and a lot of value for 1 credit.

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Talented writers

I like to leave honest reviews and I have to say that I'm not a fan of Joel Leslie's melodramatic narration style, but I adore Kale Williams. And so, I only listened to the stories that Kale narrated. They were excellent,the mysteries were great and the writing was tight. Kale Williams also did a fab job with his narration. I read the Dal MacLean story in ebook because her writing is a rare treat ...she deserved a narrator who could do the appropriate Isle of Lewis accent and do justice to her story. 5 stars for the stories I heard and read.

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Very enjoyable

Great mix of stories from some of the best mm mystery writers, great value for money.

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Loved this and read it again

What a delight def worth the money, each story had its own merits. Sexy séances that are steamy and some stories that are just that

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Footsteps

Didn’t like this book at all
Didn’t like the reader and didn’t like the story line

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