Body in the Woods Audiobook By Dawn Brookes cover art

Body in the Woods

Carlos Jacobi, Book 1

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Body in the Woods

By: Dawn Brookes
Narrated by: Tim Bruce
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A peaceful village. A buried secret. Will the hunt turn deadly? Private investigator Carlos Jacobi is looking forward to a peaceful Christmas in the Peak District with his sister and his beloved dog. But when the ex-police dog unearths the body of an elderly man in the local woods and an old enemy turns out to be the lead investigator, he's forced to make a decision. Either he leaves his incompetent nemesis to jump to the wrong conclusion or he gets involved. When the victim's family ask for assistance, his resolve weakens and he's soon investigating a strange murder. With fractured relationships and family secrets, Carlos discovers villagers are not what they seem. When another body shows up, and Carlos is attacked, things go from bad to worse. Bad blood between him and the lead investigator threatens to cloud the investigation as neither man can bury the past. Working with an old friend helps keep him focused. Can the canny investigator sift through the lies to get to the truth? Body in the Woods is the first in a twisty new series featuring private eye, Carlos Jacobi. If you like dogged detectives, twists you don't see coming and likeable sleuths, you'll love this man and his dog murder mystery.

©2020 Dawn Brookes (P)2021 Dawn Brookes Crime Fiction Mystery Private Investigators Suspense Thriller & Suspense Exciting
Engaging Mystery • Intriguing Plot Twists • Great Narrator • Suspenseful Whodunit • Realistic Investigation
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Though I had ideas on “who dunnot,”. Ms. Brookes surprised me in the end. Great characters and just enough intrigue!!

Enjoyable read

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Listener received this title free

I really enjoyed this story. I did receive it free for review, but I'm also going to be watching out for more books to come in this series. I enjoyed the narration and the characters were laid out very well. Lady the dog may have been the true hero here! This book was an easy listen and I kept coming back as often as I could. this was the first book I've listened to from this author, but I'll definitely be following for more and check out some of her other stuff as well.

Great mystery story!

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Listener received this title free

Body in the Woods is simply literary joy in an audio book. I get ridiculously excited when a character in a book, in this case Carlos, alludes to a character in another book, (Rachel Prince from Ms Brookes awesome cruise series). I'm all overcome knowing that we have a mutual friend. It is a perfect example of how superb the characters are as I feel like I know them in real life. When the book's main player has a life which includes friends and family I am delighted. I'm so fed up of characters who are lone wolves, living in splendid isolation.
The dialogue in this book was brilliant and I felt the warmth between Carlos and Sophie in their interactions. The story was totally absorbing and kept me guessing from beginning to end. Tim Bruce narrates the tale with finesse and precision and adds another layer of pleasure to an already thoroughly enjoyable book.
And no review of Body in the Woods would be complete without a reference to Lady. You will be entranced by the story and fall in love with the characters. The most perfect gift.

Absolute joy

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Listener received this title free

I so enjoyed this book which I received as a promo in exchange for an honest review. It was really good and I found myself listening when I walked my pups, did housework, drove, and cooked-any chance I could get. The author has created likable characters that you care about. She developed the characters in such a way that you “get them” almost immediately. The story line had enough twists and turns that I couldn’t guess “whodunit” and I love that. I’m pretty good but she bested me. The narration was spot on also. Very engaging and interesting book. I’m so glad it’s a series. Highly recommend.

Enjoyed!! Highly Recommend.

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Listener received this title free

Carlos Jacobi is a fun private detective to follow around in this British murder mystery. He’s visiting his sister Sophie and her husband (Brian?) for the holidays. It’s time to walk the dog, Lady, and there’s some lovely woods nearby. You can guess who gets the most excited over finding a dead body – Lady the ex-police dog, that’s who! Brian, who is pretty squeamish, easily looses his lunch. Carlos is immediately intrigued because he’s a snoopy investigator.

That beginning caught my attention right away and the story held my attention. Carlos doesn’t get along with the official police, DCI Masters, who is leading the investigation. There’s a lot of hints that they have history, but that’s never filled out. In fact, at times I felt that perhaps this was book 2 in the series and if I had started with book 1, I would understand their dynamic better. But, no, this is indeed book 1 in the series. So their troubled relationship is still mostly a mystery.

While DCI Masters bumbles around, Carlos chats up the widow and the adult daughter (Caroline). He also confides in his friend Fiona (who is also on the police force). I really liked Fiona because she’s so comfortable and confident in her Rubenesque body. I also like how she’s willing to risk her professional career to help Carlos.

The story gets a new twist when yet another body turns up but this one is decades long past it’s freshness date. At this point in the story, the suspects got really narrow and while the tale tried to keep the red herrings and suspense going, I had guessed the whodunit. Still, I was surprised with what Carlos decided to do with that info, and I applauded him for it. I also applaud Fiona for trusting Carlos’s judgement. All together, it was a solid start to a British murder mystery series. 4/5 stars.

The Narration: Tim Bruce was a good choice for this book. He had a great voice for Carlos, who has a mild Italian accent. I also liked his female voices and he had a variety of voices and accents, keeping all the characters unique. The pacing was good and there were tech issues for this recording. 5/5 stars.

I received a free copy of this book. My opinions are 100% my own.

No body can hide from this retired police dog!

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Listener received this title free

Dawn Brooks never disappoints, known for detailed and circular whodunnits, this author has written another winner. With new characters, you love to hate and characters you just already love from the Rachel Prince series, you start out ready for a good listen. The narrator draws you in from the first chapter with his melodious style. He had me from Carlos’s chuckle. Tim Bruce is a new favorite! Other reviewers have said that they knew who the murderer was from the get-go, but it was not that obvious and there was more than one crime in this story, several more in fact! So don’t let those reviews deter you from this experience! And that is what this book was… an Audio experience. I certainly hope that Dawn Brooks and Tim Bruce team up again.

Engaging read

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Carlos was visiting his sister for Christmas, accompanied by his devoted dog, Lady. Walking her in the nearby woods, she uncovered the body of a man, possibly that of the neighbour who went missing a few days before. And, despite police hostility, Carlos couldn't help but get involed.

An interesting story, a who-dun-it? with a feeling of plausibility although the hostility between two main protagonists did seem exaggerated There is a reasonable attempt at characteriseation and set in a small town with limited suspects, this is an easy read. Some humour, too.

Narrated by Tim Bruce who read with clarity and good modulation as well as individual voicings, his page was slightly too slow for this reader, and this was remedied by increasing the playback speed to 1.2. Overall, a good performance

An enjoyable murder mystery.

"Happy Christmas, Carlos

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Listener received this title free

Body in the Woods does one thing 100% right and that’s realism. It captures what a totally convoluted mess a murder mystery of this type would be. The asshole cops who don’t want the P.I. nosing in on their sorry excuse of an investigation. You have the constant lies from everybody involved. The utter chaos it would bring to the lives of everybody it touches and the rabbit holes that you unintentionally fall into.

At one point, I thought the story was over. The main mystery had been solved. But it just kept going. To be honest, I was over the story at that point. But that just added to the realism. These sort of situations don’t just have some clean finish where everybody goes home happy.

I did have a difficult time following along at times, but I blame that entirely on the audio narration. The narrator did a fine job of reading and acting out the lines. But his characters all sounded exactly the same. So I found it damn near impossible to tell who was talking during conversations that involved several people. I feel like that led to me missing out on vital plot points, though I was, in the end, able to follow along pretty well.

I think if I were to revisit this novel, I would pick up a paperback copy as I’d have a much easier time telling who said what and when.

As for the mystery, I did find myself correctly predicting the culprit. However, there were numerous other twists I wasn’t sure how they fit into the story and was decently surprised by them. I recommend this book because it really felt like I was a fly on the wall in a real investigation and I felt for the characters who had to go through all this nonsense.

NOTE: This copy was provided to me free of charge as a digital review copy. The opinions stated in this review are mine and mine alone, I was not paid or requested to give this book a certain rating, suggestion, or approval.

Baskerville Book Reviews

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Listener received this title free

I'm a sucker for a British mystery, and this one didn't disappoint. And bonus, it has a four-legged charmer named Lady.

PI Carlos Jacobi's holiday visit to his sister's home turned out to be anything but low key and relaxing. I liked how he and his furry companion Lady teamed up with DCI Fiona Cook to crack the case of who killed his sister's elderly neighbor Harold.

To put it simply, Harold was not a likeable guy. His own daughter avoided coming home for visits which meant Harold and his wife had never met their grandchildren. What had he done to inspire that? Who else had this rigid and unlikeable codger pissed off enough to end up a body in the woods?

It takes 7 hrs and 32 mins to discover the answers to those questions.

Best elements:
Interesting cast of characters
Great plot development
Awesome British narrator
Lady the cadaver detective

Final thoughts:
I'm hooked! This private investigator series is a welcome addition to my mystery reading, something I've been more into reading than romance since the 2019 pandemic rocked the status quo. Mystery was my first reading love, and it feels good to be enjoying it again now more than ever.

I look forward to the next case for PI Carlos Jacobi and Lady. And hopefully, narrator Tim Bruce will be free to do book 2.

Excellent beginning to PI Jacobi's new series!

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Listener received this title free

****Some Spoilers****
I received this book for free in exchange for a review and really wanted to enjoy it but I have to say I struggled.
The basic plot of the book is good and I did really like Carlos Jacobi, his sister Sophie and Fiona. The struggle I had was that by chapter 4 I already knew who killed the person. And I felt like from that point on there was a lot of slow moving details that; at least for me; in the end didn't actually affect the way the book ended. I felt like there was a lot of extra information that didn't help move the story along and was just there to fill the page & increase the page count.
The book just kinda ended too... it left a lot of questions unanswered. Like, I wanted to know more about WHY and HOW the person killed the other person. After all, we are talking about a 75 year old murderer so it makes me want to know more about how that came to be.
I also would have liked more resolution concerning the murderer and what happened with them after Jacobi closed the case. We were told dozens of times that there is/was tension between Jacobi and Masters but never anything more -- would have been interested to read more about that dynamic.
There were things that just popped up and left me wondering when did this happen and did I miss something - like Caroline having a lawyer show up out of nowhere.

The book overall wasn't terrible, I did finish it; I just wanted more. Then again, I think the book is more a "Hallmark channel" and I'm a fan more of the "ID Channel" when it comes to murder/mystery types.

Good, but left me with questions. *Spoliers*

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