My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Review: The Legendary Detectives

The Legendary Detectives The Legendary Detectives by Jean Marie Stine
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: ***

Decent Shorts from the Age of Great Detective

I am a big fan of the great detectives/mystery narratives; however, I am also not much of a fan for short stories that don’e have enough time to develop a more interesting storyline. It seems the later tempered my enjoyment of these works. Still, it was a tremendous opportunity to encounter some of the characters that did not survive into the current age … and now I may understand the reason to some extent … some just didn’t age very well. The generally average narration was just not able to pull many of these up as the narrator obvious struggled to differentiate the character voices. Over all it was a nice escape if you don’t have unrealistic expectations based on reputation.

- The Fenchurch Street Mystery (49m) **
- The Long Barrow (60m) ***
- The Mystery Of The Scarlet Thread (77m) **
- The Magic of Fear (40m) **
- The Ghost at Massingham Mansions (71m) ***
- The Eye of Apollo (44m) ****
- The Ghouls (55m) ***
- The Ivory Statue (50m) ***
- The Adventure of the Lion's Mane (51m) ***


I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#TheLegendaryDetectives #AudibleGiveawaysGoodRdsGrp

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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.