The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston Narrator, Paul Michael Garcia

The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

Charlie Huston
Paul Michael Garcia

Duration:    9 hours, 45 minutes

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Fiction - Suspense

Author Charlie Huston

                                                     

Paul Michael Garcia, Narrator

Paul Michael Garcia does an outstanding rendition of Webster Goodhue. He captures the despondent, gloomy state of mind of Webster. accurately illustrating his emotions and thoughts. The text parts are read with clarity.  Huston's excellent descriptions and Garcia's narration gives an excellent visual image of the story. Like the homeless couple that lives in the alley behind his apartment they are hilarious with their drunken shouting and name calling, Garcia, fires them up.

     

Audio Book Review: The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston

Webster Goodhue once an elementary school teacher and now shirker. Sponges off Chev, his best friend since childhood. Chev owns a seedy tattoo parlor and he's fed up with supporting him and keeps nagging him to get a job. Web marginally sustains himself by putting the touch on his hippie mother for money. Except he never knows how much she will send him so it's not a reliable income.

Chev is ready to kick Web out, when Po Sin the man who collects the bloody rags and needles from Chev's business, offers Web a job. Web reluctantly agrees to start the next morning.

What he doesn't know until he's the newest member on the Clean Team is just what his new job entails. The first work site is an old mans, who had been dead awhile and, he hoarded junk and used gallon milk jugs and baggies for his toilet needs. The place is crawling with roaches and filth. Yet, Web's need for money makes him go for the second day and it's a crime scene from a suicide that blew his brains out.

The suicides daughter Soledad and Web get tangled up in their own web together when she later calls him to do a clean up for her at a motel. He know's he shouldn't go, but, the pretty girl over rides his good sense and he is drawn into an element of society that he barely knew existed.

The most annoying and idiotic of that underworld is Soledad's half brother. There is a lot and I mean a lot of swearing, but considering the type of people involved it would seem strange if they didn't swear a lot. The book is very good, even though the trauma cleaner theme is repulsive. I'd give this 5 stars because it's original, and not the usual whodunit.

                   

 The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston   Narrator:  Paul Michael Garcia

Ghost in Trouble by Carolyn Hart Narrated by Ann Marie Lee

Carolyn Hart

Bailey Ruth Raeburn Series, Book 3

Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee

Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins

Books on Tape

Carolyn Hart Author

Narrator Ann Marie Lee

Ann Marie Lee was a good choice for Bailey Ruth, her voice is soft and feminine. There were several times when it was hard to tell that a male was speaking and a few spots where I couldn't tell who was speaking at all, for lack of change in voice. The highly emotionally charged sections were a bit over the top. Yet Ann Marie Lee does capture the character of Bailey Ruth. 

 Ghost in Trouble as a title doesn't seem to fit the story. The book is unnecessarily long and a lot of it is talk about clothes. There were many inappropriate references to Bailey's clothes. Some of them lengthy enough to break the story line. I also found it strange that Bailey can eat and drink. That's a new concept in ghostly activities.

In the first chapters Bailey was not able to open a locked door or do anything typical like pass through the wall, window or door. Much later in the book Bailey is doing just that and dropping through the floor into another room. In the two previous books in this series Bailey Ruth is able to talk and see people who have just died but in this book she doesn't seem able to do this.

Bailey has so little information regarding what she needs to do to help her charge, that it seems silly to have sent her at all. Overall the entire story is weak, and Bailey's personality goes between a dumb twit to a stellar investigator. The story line would have worked better if Bailey was in communication with the victim and together they worked through who killed him.