Narrator Sandy Rustin's youthful tone and energetic delivery guide listeners down PAY DIRT ROAD with youthful energy and palpable anxiety. Allen's mystery features a small-town murder investigated by an unlikely private eye. Rustin empathizes with recent college graduate and former waitress Annie McIntyre, who is seeking her purpose in life. She attends a party with former friends and co-workers at which someone murders a waitress. Annie knows the man arrested is innocent, so she stumbles into her family's private investigations business with her grandfather, a former sheriff. Rustin picks up the pace as Annie works to uncover the truth and confront some of her own unresolved issues. Rustin performs Allen's debut with passion and aplomb.
Pub Date: April 19, 2022
Duration: 8 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9781705050088
Publisher: Recorded Books Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
For someone whose vocal palette contains so few colors, Edward Asner is a surprisingly effective narrator. His familiar, pleasant growl compels attention and bespeaks authority. He has his faults though. As an audiobook performer, he has but one personality, whatever the narrative voice of his text. One gets the impression that he enters the studio underprepared, taking his time to discover the book as he reads it. Thus it is with An Isolated Incident, a taut, suspenseful murder mystery set in Puget Sound. Other readers could better explore all the beats of this rich page-turner, but few could hold an audience as effortlessly.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 3 hrs
Publisher: Time Warner AudioBooks
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Kay Scarpetta takes on more than routine investigations as her job of medical examiner involves her once again in a search for an unknown killer. The story is riveting from the opening chapters, and Sheila Hart never lets the intrigue subside. However Hart doesn't use enough vocal range, and male voices sound tinny and high-pitched. The dialogues with tough yet, endearing, Lt. Pete Marino have perfect cadence, accent and speech pattern, but sound somewhat thin and insubstantial. Telephone conversations and flashbacks are set off by effective sound enhancement, a useful addition. The overall presentation is very good driven strongly by the author's contribution.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 9 hrs
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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