Review: Robot listening and reading The First Faux Pas
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 2, 2011
Some, perhaps many, people will never listen using the Amazon (male) robot. Certainly, it is not the same as listening to a book read by one of the many fine audio book readers, like Barbara Rosenblatt and George Guidall. However, these books cost (unabridged) 30 or 40 dollars, the Robot reads for no extra price. It takes some getting used to, a process I have completed, there are deficiencies in the Amazon as compared to what the software could do, but, I find it satisfying. This book "listened"  well.  When circumstances required it,  i did read in the customary way (although I prefer saving my eyes for non-fiction) and, for me, listening was but little less satisfying.As to the book itself, without the same condemnation made by another reader, I, too, did feel that the book was moving along quite nicely, appealing lead and featured characters-the heroine, her live-in lover, and her two bosses, and mostly well drawn characters involved in the puzzle; but, for some reason, somewhat past mid-way in the book, the author lets the mystery get over-complicated, the action confused, and, ultimately, it goes like one of the merry-go-rounds in films, which spins round faster and faster, until it runs out of control and sends riders and then their mounts whirling into space.In other words, too much complication is as bad as too great a degree of simplicity in a mystery story.On the whole, therefore, I can recommend the book, at this price, as a very promising beginning and, for a good proportion of the book, a satisfying read. Worth your time although you may be a bit irritated at the elaborate machinations one would not expect in future books in the series.