Thank you Brilliance Audio, #partner for the ALC of Listen to Me in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Published: July 5, 2022
Summary:
Rizzoli & Isles are back! From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen, this “shocking and fast-paced” (Karin Slaughter) thriller has Jane and Maura investigating a brutal murder with dire implications, and this time, with Jane’s intrepid mother, Angela, looking into a mystery of her own.
“Absolutely first rate—readers will be thrilled and delighted by this new Rizzoli & Isles outing!”—Shari Lapena, New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door
Mothers know best . . . But who will listen?
Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles are newly plagued by what seems like a completely senseless murder. Sofia Suarez, a widow and nurse who was universally liked by her neighbors, lies bludgeoned to death in her own home. But anything can happen behind closed doors, and Sofia seemed to have plenty of secrets in her last days, making covert phone calls to traceless burner phones. When Jane finally makes a connection between Sofia and the victim of a hit-and-run from months earlier, the case only grows more blurry. What exactly was Sofia involved in? One thing is clear: The killer will do anything it takes to keep their secret safe.
Meanwhile, Angela Rizzoli hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in all the years since her daughter became a homicide detective. Maybe the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree: Nothing in Angela’s neighborhood gets by her—not the gossip about a runaway teenager down the block and definitely not the strange neighbors who have just moved in across the street. Angela’s sure there’s no such thing as coincidence in her sleepy suburb. If only Jane would listen—instead she writes off Angela’s concerns as the result of an overactive imagination. But Angela’s convinced there’s a real wolf in her vicinity, and her cries might now fall on deaf ears.
With so much happening on the Sofia case, Jane and Maura already struggle to see the forest for the trees, but will they lose sight of something sinister happening much closer to home?
My thoughts:
I am a huge fan of Tess Gerritsen’s Rizzoli and Isles series and I cannot tell you how happy I was to see that she had written a new book in this series as it had been quite a while since the last book had come out – five years to be exact!
Picking this book up was like revisiting old friends. I immediately felt right at ease with the characters – again, reading a series in order gives you that familiarity with the characters so that no matter how long it is between books, once you start reading a new one, it feels like yesterday that you were just with them. But, if you haven’t read any of the books in this series, I will say this might be a good one to start with as it does work well as a stand-alone.
I loved that we have Jane and Maura deep in the trenches working a case that involves all their concentration and efforts. The case is twisty and involves a lot of work on their end before they are finally able to put all the pieces together, but I loved that we get such an in-depth look at the procedural side of things here – both in terms of the police investigative work and from the medical examiner’s perspective. This really keeps things interesting, though it does tend to get a little dark and gruesome at times.
To help balance all that darkness out, we have some levity, and this time around it comes from Jane’s mother Angela, who plays a pretty significant role in this book, which I loved! She’s always been one of my favorite characters and I loved how she took it upon herself to become the neighborhood watch person partly because she was bored and partly because her suspicious mind went into overdrive at some activities she saw happening.
This was a great installment to this series and I loved the way everything was wrapped up. I do hope we aren’t left waiting another few years before the next book like we have been with these last couple.
Audio thoughts:
This is such a fun series to listen to and Tanya Eby does a great job with it. She’s been narrating the last few books and I love the consistency in that. I’m a big fan of having the same narrator narrate a series, whenever possible – it just helps keep voices straight and makes sense – and having Tanya stay with this series has been great! She really makes an effort to give each character their own unique voice and I enjoy her narration.
