narrator – Christina Traister – Caz's Reading Room

right behind her

This title may be downloaded from Audible via Amazon

Twenty-seven years ago, Sheriff Bree Taggert’s father killed her mother, then himself. Now Bree and her younger brother, Adam, find human bones on the grounds of their abandoned family farm. The remains are those of a man and a woman, both murdered in the same horrible way.

When the investigation determines the murders occurred thirty years ago, Bree’s dead father becomes a suspect, forcing Bree to revisit the brutal night she’s spent most of her life trying to forget. The only other suspect is an unlikely squatter on the Taggert farm who claims to know secrets about Bree’s past. When he mysteriously disappears and Bree’s niece is kidnapped, the cold case heats up.

Bree has stoked the rage of a murderer who’ll do anything to keep his identity – and motives – a secret. To protect everyone she loves, Bree must confront a killer.

Rating: Narration – C+; Content- B

Right Behind Her is the fourth book in Melinda Leigh’s series of romantic suspense novels featuring Bree Taggert, a former homicide detective who is now sheriff of Grey’s Hollow in upstate New York. While each one comprises a self-contained mystery plot, these books really do need to be read in order, so as to be able to follow and understand Bree’s journey from hard-nosed cop who never wanted to see her home town again to a woman making a life and a family there. In the first book, Cross Her Heart, Bree returned to Grey’s Hollow after the murder of her younger sister and realised she needed to stay in order to look after her niece Kayla (eight) and nephew Luke (sixteen) – even though she didn’t have the faintest idea about raising kids. As the series has progressed, we’ve seen her slowly settling into her new roles – professional and personal – although her path has been strewn with realistic obstacles, both internal and external, from dealing with the aftermath of the corruption she uncovered in the sheriff’s department to the continuing fall-out of her own personal trauma – her father was a violent man who killed her mother and then himself when Bree was just eight years old, and it’s clear that she has never really processed or dealt with it. It’s also left her very cautious about forming relationships – which means she’s spent the last couple of books keeping her love interest – investigator and K9 handler Matt Flynn – at a distance, while he begins to worry that she may never be ready or able to commit to him emotionally.

When Right Behind Her opens, Bree and her younger brother Adam – who was just a baby when their parents died – are paying a visit to their former family home, which Adam (now a very successful artist) has recently purchased. It’s hard for Bree, but she wants to be there for her brother, who is clearly looking for some sort of connection to a past he has no memory of. Privately, Bree thinks it’s better that way. As they’re leaving, Bree hears sounds coming from the nearby barn; she identifies herself and enters cautiously, only to be attacked by whoever is inside. The man runs, but Bree manages to subdue him, and once backup arrives and she hands him off, she realises the backpack he was carrying is missing. She, her deputies and Adam start looking for it, but find more than they bargained for when Bree finds the backpack – and Adam finds some old bones. Human remains that are later shown to be those of a man and a woman who were murdered around thirty years before. And the man had clearly been tortured.

Given the timeline and the placement of the remains, there’s no way Bree can ignore the likelihood that her father may have been responsible for the murders. But as she and Matt start digging deeper and their investigation opens out, it seems Jake Taggert isn’t the only suspect – and that there is someone else, someone very much alive in the present, who is determined to prevent Bree from discovering the truth, and who will go to any lengths, even threatening her family, in order to do so.

Right Behind Her is an intense, intricately-plotted and suspenseful story that brings Bree full-circle and forces her to confront the violent tragedy of her past in a way she has refused to do so far. She’s so good at compartmentalising her life that she’s locked it all away in her mind, but this case makes her realise that, if she’s going to do her job properly – and if she wants to build something real with Matt – she has to face those memories she’s tried so hard to forget.

Bree has come a long way since we first met her, and she’s finally starting to achieve some balance in her life. Luke and Kayla are emerging from their grief and starting to return to leading normal lives for kids their age, she’s fallen hard for Matt, and things at work are changing very much for the better. The author does a good job of creating the slightly claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town; the procedural aspects are well done, and the mystery is clever with plenty of twists.

The romance in this series is very low key, and sometimes, Matt seems almost like another secondary character. He’s a great guy – supportive, good at his job, good with the kids – but his relationship with Bree has been pretty one sided, and I couldn’t help thinking he deserved someone who would put him first once in a while.

I’ve listened to Christina Traister a couple of times before, and enjoyed her work, but I have mixed feeling about her narration here. Her pacing is fine, if a little on the slow side, and her voice is easy to listen to; it sits in the mid-range, so she can drop the pitch without it sounding strained to portray male characters – but the way she’s chosen to voice Matt is just awful. He speaks with an Eeyore-ish monotone most of the time and sounds like an expressionless lump; in fact, Bree’s deputy, Todd, sounds much more like a leading man than Matt does. I was also surprised at the choice to perform Luke’s dialogue in a similar register; he’s a young man of sixteen, and could easily have spoken at a slightly higher pitch to differentiate him from the other male characters. Ms. Traister’s portrayal of Bree is good, though, it’s expressive and suitably emotional, and I liked her acting choices, how she’d put a laugh or sob into her voice at the appropriate moments. Taken as a whole, it’s not a bad performance in most respects, but her interpretation of Matt bothered me quite a bit, and has caused me to drop my narration grade a bit.

I’ve been following this series in print, but decided to give audio a try for this instalment, with mixed results. I liked the plot and seeing Bree finally coming to terms with her past, but the narration left something to be desired. I believe there are to be two more outings for Bree Taggert, but I think I’ll stick to reading them with my eyes rather than my ears.

This review originally appeared at AudioGals.

Dr. Tessa McGowan had never seen anything quite like it. But the mutilated bodies on her exam table tell a stunningly macabre tale: someone with a twisted mind is kidnapping women and altering their faces to resemble real, life-size dolls. As a forensic pathologist, it’s her job to aid the agent leading the case – even if that agent is her estranged husband.

Twelve years ago an unspeakable tragedy destroyed Dakota Sharp’s world. Haunted by the ghosts of his past, he’s devoted himself to capturing killers. His only regret is that it cost him Tessa. Now, as the Dollmaker case brings them together – and raises his suspicions that he’s crossed paths with this deranged psychopath before – they may just have their second chance. But it seems Dakota’s not the only one who wants to make Tessa his own…

She may be the Dollmaker’s next target, but Tessa has no intention of winding up as another toy on his shelf. Can she and Dakota stop this ghastly killer before his next deadly playdate?

Rating: Narration – B+; Content – B+

The Dollmaker is the second book in Mary Burton’s The Forgotten Files series, but it works perfectly well as a standalone. It’s my first time listening to a book by this author, and it definitely won’t be my last, as the mystery is tightly-plotted and suspenseful and the main characters, while perhaps somewhat stereotypical, are nonetheless well-drawn and likeable. The mystery element of the book is very much to the fore, although there is also a second-chance romance between Agent Dakota Sharp of the Virginia State Police and his estranged wife, pathologist Dr. Tessa McGowan, brewing in the background.

While attending the funeral of his step-father, Roger, to whom he wasn’t close, Dakota Sharp is approached by Douglas Knox, the former local police chief who investigated the death of Sharp’s half-sister, Kara, some twelve years ago. The cause of death was an overdose, but Roger was never convinced of that and spent the last decade or so trying to prove she was murdered. Knox now tells Sharp that there may have been more to Kara’s death and offers to send him his case files. Sharp is sceptical, but, to humour the old man, accepts the offer and asks a colleague to look over them, feeling he’s too close to events to do so himself.

Shortly after this, Sharp picks up a couple of seemingly unrelated cases; the stabbing of a teenaged boy, and the murder of a young woman who was found propped up against a tree in a park, dressed and made up to look like a doll. Except it turns out that the make-up is actually tattoos, meaning that whoever murdered her must have held her captive and sedated for quite some time. The pathology team, which includes the newly appointed Tessa McGowan, finds that the cause of death was an overdose – but there is clearly a lot more going on and this is no “simple” murder.

Sharp and Tessa were married a couple of years earlier, but were only together for eight months before Tessa left to work abroad. She didn’t necessarily want to end their marriage, but things weren’t working and a distance was growing between them. Dakota had always been dedicated to his job, but a recent case that bore similarities to his sister’s death had completely consumed him and he became more driven than ever, relegating everything else in his life to a poor second place. Neither he nor Tessa was willing to compromise at that point – but a year out of the country has crystallised things for Tessa, and she has returned, determined to set things right between them and make their marriage work.

Dakota, on the other hand, isn’t sure they should remain married. He doesn’t think he’s good for Tessa; he’s eleven years older than her and a self-confessed workaholic, and while he loves her as much as he ever did, he wonders if she would be happier with someone else. So he’s surprised and a bit defensive when Tessa makes it clear that she’s still in love with him and that she isn’t going to let him just walk away.

I really liked how the author handles the romance here. Dakota has lost sight of what’s really important in life; he’s dedicated and exceptionally good at his job, but clearly there’s an element there of wanting to assuage the guilt he still feels over not having been able to prevent his sister’s death. Tessa has matured a lot in her year away and is now able to understand what drives Dakota and to want to help him, personally as well as professionally. There’s strong chemistry between them, and it’s clear that they’re both now in a position to recognise that they are better together than apart. But the stakes are raised when the investigation into the murdered “doll” starts to indicate that the killer is not selecting random targets and it looks as though Tessa may well be his next intended victim.

I’m not going to spoil the mystery, save to say that the way the author draws together all the different narrative threads is truly masterful. The link between the cases – the stabbing, Kara’s death, the murdered “doll” – all emerge slowly but steadily, and at no time did I ever need to scratch my head over inadequately thought-out plot twists or jumps in logic. There are a few slightly gruesome scenes where we follow the Dollmaker as he works on his creations, but there’s nothing overly graphic, and I’m sure that anyone who regularly listens to romantic suspense novels – or watches CSI on TV! – won’t be unduly shocked.

Christina Traister is a new-to-me narrator, but one who is very experienced, as a quick look at the over 100 titles to her credit at Audible will show. She delivers a very good performance on all counts here; her pacing in both narrative and dialogue is good, she differentiates well and effectively between characters, and her acting choices are spot on. I was particularly impressed with her vocal acting in the scenes involving the Dollmaker – who is almost always uncannily calm and self-possessed, speaking in a quiet, near-monotone that is perfect for someone who is so horribly unhinged – and his terrified victims, where she expertly conveys their fear without going over the top. The Virginia accents Ms. Traister adopts for Dakota and other locals sound authentic to my English ears, although I have to say that the accent, coupled with Dakota’s considered, deliberate manner of speaking does sometimes make him sound like a bit of a cross between Forrest Gump and Eeyore. But as I got into the story and got used to it, I started to find it rather endearing and it didn’t spoil my enjoyment in any way.

The Dollmaker is a fabulous piece of romantic suspense and one I’m recommending without hesitation to fans of the genre. The suspense storyline is gripping and very well executed, and the romance is nicely done, conveying a real sense of two people who are reconnecting at the right time in their lives and that they are going to make a go of things. I really liked the way Ms. Burton linked the different past and present plotlines together, so I’m off to listen to the previous book in the series, The Shark and definitely plan to keep an eye out for future instalments.