-
Velma Gone Awry
- A Brooklyn 8 Ballo Mystery
- Narrated by: Colin Martin
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Award-winning author Matt Cost brings us back to Brooklyn in the Roaring 20s and introduces us to Hungarian private eye, Eight Ballo, who is hired to find the daughter of a wealthy businessman. The search will lead him to cross paths with Dorothy Parker, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Bugsy Siegel, Babe Ruth, and many more as he tries to uncover why Velma went awry.
Eight Ballo’s mother was certain he was going to be born a girl, but when he comes out a boy, she writes down simply the number eight, as he has seven older siblings. She meant to change it to a real name at some point, but never got around to it.
Now, in his mid-30s, Eight is a college educated man, a veteran of the Great War, jilted in love, and has his own private investigator business. He enjoys his friends, a good book, jazz music, and a very simple life. When he is hired to find the young flapper daughter of a German businessman, life suddenly becomes much more complicated.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Secrets of the Rabbi's Mafia
- A Jake Cooper Novel
- By: Irv Segal
- Narrated by: Benjamin Powell
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1995 in Chicago, Illinois. Jake Cooper is a former Ultra-Orthodox scholar of Jewish Talmudic law turned amateur sleuth. In this suspenseful thriller, he investigates a murder for which his girlfriend has been arrested. His investigation reveals secret stories and crimes about the Jewish mafia. The corruption runs deep into extortion, kidnapping, and murder. The only way to stop the mayhem and take down the rabbi and his mafia puts Jake in mortal danger. Will he stop them before becoming their next victim?
-
-
An unfolding of so many twists and turns
- By Crissie on 10-14-23
By: Irv Segal
-
Murder in Postscript
- By: Mary Winters
- Narrated by: Ella Lynch
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amelia Amesbury—widow, mother, and countess—has a secret. Amelia writes for a London penny paper, doling out advice on fashion, relationships, and manners under the pen name Lady Agony. But when a lady’s maid writes Amelia to ask for advice when she believes her mistress has been murdered—and then ends up a victim herself—Amelia is determined to solve the case.
-
-
Riddled with historical inaccuracies
- By Neave on 05-29-23
By: Mary Winters
-
One Summer in Savannah
- A Novel
- By: Terah Shelton Harris
- Narrated by: Zuzu Robinson
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A compelling debut that glows with bittersweet heart and touching emotion, deeply interrogating questions of family, redemption, and unconditional love in the sweltering summer heat of Savannah, as two people discover what it means to truly forgive.
-
-
Forgiveness
- By Giomara Montes on 12-11-23
-
Poacher's Son
- By: Paul Doiron
- Narrated by: Henry Leyva
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the wilds of Maine, this is an explosive tale of an estranged son thrust into the hunt for a murderous fugitive - his own father. Game warden Mike Bowditch returns home one evening to find an alarming voice from the past on his answering machine: his father, Jack, a hard-drinking womanizer who makes his living poaching illegal game. An even more frightening call comes the next morning from the police: They are searching for the man who killed a beloved local cop the night before - and his father is their prime suspect.
-
-
Very good writer -
- By S. on 10-02-15
By: Paul Doiron
-
One Good Deed
- By: David Baldacci
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1949. When war veteran Aloysius Archer is released from Carderock Prison, he is sent to Poca City on parole with a short list of dos and a much longer list of don'ts: do report regularly to his parole officer, don't go to bars, certainly don't drink alcohol, do get a job - and don't ever associate with loose women. The small town quickly proves more complicated and dangerous than Archer's years serving in the war or his time in jail.
-
-
Superior Historical Crime novel!!
- By shelley on 07-24-19
By: David Baldacci
-
Buried in the Backwater
- A Sheriff Elven Hallie Mystery, Book 1
- By: Drew Strickland
- Narrated by: Madison Niederhauser
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lifeless girl slips into the river, cold and crumpled. Her body washes away with the rain. Her killer remains a mystery. Sheriff Elven Hallie has been longing for a new case that would add some excitement to his small-town life. But a dead girl wasn’t what he expected. On the last murder case he worked, he was just a deputy with an experienced Sheriff to guide him and they were looking for an outsider. This time, he’s in charge, and the killer is part of their community.
-
-
Good Story- Weird Narration & Relationships
- By Patchouli Moonbeam on 01-11-23
By: Drew Strickland
-
Secrets of the Rabbi's Mafia
- A Jake Cooper Novel
- By: Irv Segal
- Narrated by: Benjamin Powell
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1995 in Chicago, Illinois. Jake Cooper is a former Ultra-Orthodox scholar of Jewish Talmudic law turned amateur sleuth. In this suspenseful thriller, he investigates a murder for which his girlfriend has been arrested. His investigation reveals secret stories and crimes about the Jewish mafia. The corruption runs deep into extortion, kidnapping, and murder. The only way to stop the mayhem and take down the rabbi and his mafia puts Jake in mortal danger. Will he stop them before becoming their next victim?
-
-
An unfolding of so many twists and turns
- By Crissie on 10-14-23
By: Irv Segal
-
Murder in Postscript
- By: Mary Winters
- Narrated by: Ella Lynch
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amelia Amesbury—widow, mother, and countess—has a secret. Amelia writes for a London penny paper, doling out advice on fashion, relationships, and manners under the pen name Lady Agony. But when a lady’s maid writes Amelia to ask for advice when she believes her mistress has been murdered—and then ends up a victim herself—Amelia is determined to solve the case.
-
-
Riddled with historical inaccuracies
- By Neave on 05-29-23
By: Mary Winters
-
One Summer in Savannah
- A Novel
- By: Terah Shelton Harris
- Narrated by: Zuzu Robinson
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A compelling debut that glows with bittersweet heart and touching emotion, deeply interrogating questions of family, redemption, and unconditional love in the sweltering summer heat of Savannah, as two people discover what it means to truly forgive.
-
-
Forgiveness
- By Giomara Montes on 12-11-23
-
Poacher's Son
- By: Paul Doiron
- Narrated by: Henry Leyva
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the wilds of Maine, this is an explosive tale of an estranged son thrust into the hunt for a murderous fugitive - his own father. Game warden Mike Bowditch returns home one evening to find an alarming voice from the past on his answering machine: his father, Jack, a hard-drinking womanizer who makes his living poaching illegal game. An even more frightening call comes the next morning from the police: They are searching for the man who killed a beloved local cop the night before - and his father is their prime suspect.
-
-
Very good writer -
- By S. on 10-02-15
By: Paul Doiron
-
One Good Deed
- By: David Baldacci
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1949. When war veteran Aloysius Archer is released from Carderock Prison, he is sent to Poca City on parole with a short list of dos and a much longer list of don'ts: do report regularly to his parole officer, don't go to bars, certainly don't drink alcohol, do get a job - and don't ever associate with loose women. The small town quickly proves more complicated and dangerous than Archer's years serving in the war or his time in jail.
-
-
Superior Historical Crime novel!!
- By shelley on 07-24-19
By: David Baldacci
-
Buried in the Backwater
- A Sheriff Elven Hallie Mystery, Book 1
- By: Drew Strickland
- Narrated by: Madison Niederhauser
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lifeless girl slips into the river, cold and crumpled. Her body washes away with the rain. Her killer remains a mystery. Sheriff Elven Hallie has been longing for a new case that would add some excitement to his small-town life. But a dead girl wasn’t what he expected. On the last murder case he worked, he was just a deputy with an experienced Sheriff to guide him and they were looking for an outsider. This time, he’s in charge, and the killer is part of their community.
-
-
Good Story- Weird Narration & Relationships
- By Patchouli Moonbeam on 01-11-23
By: Drew Strickland
-
Deacon King Kong
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project's drug dealer at point-blank range. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong, James McBride's funny, moving novel and his first since his National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird.
-
-
Masterpiece
- By Linda G McDonough on 05-17-20
By: James McBride
-
Devil in a Blue Dress
- An Easy Rawlins Mystery
- By: Walter Mosley
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.
-
-
Beware of Mysterious Sexy Women with Big Suitcases
- By Jefferson on 02-13-11
By: Walter Mosley
-
Small Mercies
- A Novel
- By: Dennis Lehane
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessey is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched.
-
-
Sadly these streets are my home…
- By shipyardjay on 05-10-23
By: Dennis Lehane
-
A Troll Walks into a Bar
- A Noir Urban Fantasy Novel (Alexander Southerland, P.I., Book 1)
- By: Douglas Lumsden
- Narrated by: Duffy P. Weber
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A troll in a pinstriped suit walks into a bar. He's looking for Alex Southerland, private investigator and summoner of elementals. A gorgeous dame is going to come to Southerland with a case, and the troll tells him that he is going to turn the case down - or else! But Southerland doesn't respond well to threats. Besides, he needs the dough! Framed for a murder he didn't commit, Southerland weaves his way from seedy neighborhoods to the dazzling lights of downtown - and from one savage beating to the next - to clear his name and uncover a shocking secret.
-
-
Solid Noir
- By Amazon Customer on 06-23-21
By: Douglas Lumsden
-
The Thin Man
- By: Dashiell Hammett
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Thin Man introduces Nick and Nora Charles, New York's coolest crime-solving couple. Nick retired from detecting after his wife inherited a tidy sum, but six years later a pretty blonde spies him at a speakeasy and asks for his help finding her father, an eccentric inventor who was once Nick's client. Nick can no more resist the case than a morning cocktail or a good fight, and soon he and Nora are caught in a complicated web of confused identities.
-
-
RECORDING IS DEFECTIVE! MISSING SEVEN CHAPTERS!
- By David on 01-08-13
By: Dashiell Hammett
-
Fortune Favors the Dead
- A Novel
- By: Stephen Spotswood
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1942 and Willowjean "Will" Parker is a scrappy circus runaway whose knife-throwing skills have just saved the life of New York's best, and most unorthodox, private investigator, Lillian Pentecost. When the dapper detective summons Will a few days later, she doesn't expect to be offered a life-changing proposition: Lillian's multiple sclerosis means she can't keep up with her old case load alone, so she wants to hire Will to be her right-hand woman. In return, Will is to receive a salary, room and board, and training in Lillian's very particular art of investigation.
-
-
Stick with Rex Stout
- By Jeffrey P Rowland on 01-14-22
-
Miami Burn
- Titus Florida Crime Thriller Series
- By: John D. Patten
- Narrated by: Adam Gold
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Titus drove to Florida to murder a man. Fresh from prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Out for blood. But when a distraught mother begs him to track down her missing daughter, the former detective can't help himself. He dives head-first into a sleazy South Beach underworld of lowlife thugs, celebrity wannabes, and drug-fueled sex parties. Titus soon finds himself up against an organized crime boss, a crooked politician, and a hard-nosed detective.
-
-
New series, new author FIVE Stars!
- By shelley on 11-24-19
By: John D. Patten
-
Mackenzie August (The First Collection)
- By: Alan Lee
- Narrated by: Scott Ellis
- Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The gripping first bundle in the next great detective series. Book one: Mack August, frustrated Los Angeles police detective, moves to a smaller city in Virginia to start over. Rather than join the force, he opens his own PI shop and hires out to local attorneys - until Sheriff Stackhouse comes calling, a stunner in designer khakis. Trouble has arrived, she explains, in the form of a gang general from the West Coast. He's galvanizing the drug trade using vicious strong-arm tactics, and the police can't identify him.
-
-
Woke Stereotype Supporting Characters
- By 40-something Dad on 01-22-23
By: Alan Lee
-
The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
- The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age - The '20s, '30s & '40s (Big Book Series)
- By: Otto Penzler
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May, Traci Odom, Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 73 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Containing over 47 stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train - a bullet couldn't pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes.
-
-
Such a great collection!!
- By Amazon Customer on 07-13-20
By: Otto Penzler
-
Noir Fatale
- By: Kacey Ezell - editor, Larry Correia - editor
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii, Bronson Pinchot, Erin Mallon, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the pulpy pages of Black Mask Magazine in the 1920s and '30s, through the film noir era of the 1940s, to today, noir fiction has lured many a reader and movie-goer away from the light and into the dark underbelly of society. Names such as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain; titles like The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice...these have inhabited our collective consciousness for decades. Humanity, it seems, loves the dark. And within the dark, one figure stands out: that of the femme fatale.
-
-
Excellent Anthology.
- By Alex Sumner on 07-02-19
By: Kacey Ezell - editor, and others
-
A Hard Ticket Home
- By: David Housewright
- Narrated by: Brent Hinkle
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he’s willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn’t), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago.
-
-
Finally on Audible...
- By shelley on 03-14-20
-
The Venom Business
- By: Michael Crichton, John Lange
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As an expert handler of venomous snakes - and a smuggler of rare artifacts - Charles Raynaud is accustomed to danger. So the job body-guarding an old acquaintance about to come into a fortune shouldn't make him break a sweat. But when the attempts on the man's life nearly get Raynaud killed, he's left wondering: is he the killers' real target...?
-
-
Meh
- By Dillon Burgess on 04-07-19
By: Michael Crichton, and others
Related to this topic
-
The Thin Man
- By: Dashiell Hammett
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Thin Man introduces Nick and Nora Charles, New York's coolest crime-solving couple. Nick retired from detecting after his wife inherited a tidy sum, but six years later a pretty blonde spies him at a speakeasy and asks for his help finding her father, an eccentric inventor who was once Nick's client. Nick can no more resist the case than a morning cocktail or a good fight, and soon he and Nora are caught in a complicated web of confused identities.
-
-
RECORDING IS DEFECTIVE! MISSING SEVEN CHAPTERS!
- By David on 01-08-13
By: Dashiell Hammett
-
A Hard Ticket Home
- By: David Housewright
- Narrated by: Brent Hinkle
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he’s willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn’t), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago.
-
-
Finally on Audible...
- By shelley on 03-14-20
-
Walking the Perfect Square
- A Moe Prager Mystery
- By: Reed Farrel Coleman
- Narrated by: Andy Caploe
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Recently retired due to a freak accident, NYPD officer Moe Prager is lost. In pain and without the job he loves, Moe relunctantly settles on the notion of going into the wine business with his brother. But when a suburban college student vanishes off the streets of Manhattan, Prager's universe is turned upside down and his life changed forever. Hired by the student's desperate family, Moe plunges deep into the world of New York's punk underground, sex clubs, and biker bars.
-
-
Clever, Interesting, Satisfying
- By Ted on 06-12-12
-
The Sins of the Fathers
- By: Lawrence Block
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The hooker was young, pretty...and dead, butchered in a Greenwich Village apartment. The prime suspect, a minister's son, was also dead, the victim of a jailhouse suicide. The case is closed, as far as the NYPD is concerned. Now the murdered prostitute's father wants it opened again--that's where Matthew Scudder comes in.
-
-
Good introduction to a popular series
- By Sharron on 12-26-11
By: Lawrence Block
-
Red Harvest
- By: Dashiell Hammett
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty--even if that meant taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain. From the author of The Maltese Falcon.
-
-
Great story, great narration, terrible reccording
- By yep on 08-21-14
By: Dashiell Hammett
-
The Last Refuge
- By: Chris Knopf
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sam Acquillo is at the end of the line: he's a middle-aged corporate dropout living in a ramshackle cottage in Southampton's North Sea. But then the old lady next door ends up floating dead in her bathtub, and it seems that Sam is the only one who wonders why.
-
-
A hero who doesn't work and play well with others.
- By Cholmondeley on 04-04-13
By: Chris Knopf
-
The Thin Man
- By: Dashiell Hammett
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Thin Man introduces Nick and Nora Charles, New York's coolest crime-solving couple. Nick retired from detecting after his wife inherited a tidy sum, but six years later a pretty blonde spies him at a speakeasy and asks for his help finding her father, an eccentric inventor who was once Nick's client. Nick can no more resist the case than a morning cocktail or a good fight, and soon he and Nora are caught in a complicated web of confused identities.
-
-
RECORDING IS DEFECTIVE! MISSING SEVEN CHAPTERS!
- By David on 01-08-13
By: Dashiell Hammett
-
A Hard Ticket Home
- By: David Housewright
- Narrated by: Brent Hinkle
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he’s willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn’t), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago.
-
-
Finally on Audible...
- By shelley on 03-14-20
-
Walking the Perfect Square
- A Moe Prager Mystery
- By: Reed Farrel Coleman
- Narrated by: Andy Caploe
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Recently retired due to a freak accident, NYPD officer Moe Prager is lost. In pain and without the job he loves, Moe relunctantly settles on the notion of going into the wine business with his brother. But when a suburban college student vanishes off the streets of Manhattan, Prager's universe is turned upside down and his life changed forever. Hired by the student's desperate family, Moe plunges deep into the world of New York's punk underground, sex clubs, and biker bars.
-
-
Clever, Interesting, Satisfying
- By Ted on 06-12-12
-
The Sins of the Fathers
- By: Lawrence Block
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The hooker was young, pretty...and dead, butchered in a Greenwich Village apartment. The prime suspect, a minister's son, was also dead, the victim of a jailhouse suicide. The case is closed, as far as the NYPD is concerned. Now the murdered prostitute's father wants it opened again--that's where Matthew Scudder comes in.
-
-
Good introduction to a popular series
- By Sharron on 12-26-11
By: Lawrence Block
-
Red Harvest
- By: Dashiell Hammett
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty--even if that meant taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain. From the author of The Maltese Falcon.
-
-
Great story, great narration, terrible reccording
- By yep on 08-21-14
By: Dashiell Hammett
-
The Last Refuge
- By: Chris Knopf
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sam Acquillo is at the end of the line: he's a middle-aged corporate dropout living in a ramshackle cottage in Southampton's North Sea. But then the old lady next door ends up floating dead in her bathtub, and it seems that Sam is the only one who wonders why.
-
-
A hero who doesn't work and play well with others.
- By Cholmondeley on 04-04-13
By: Chris Knopf
What listeners say about Velma Gone Awry
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amy's Bookshelf Reviews
- 10-04-23
It's the roaring 20s, with emphasis on roaring
Matt Cost tells a thrilling mysterious tale with Velma Gone Awry. I did read the print version of the story, and enjoyed it, but I also really enjoyed this audiobook. This narration really brought this story to life. This is a new story from Matt Cost, and one of his most interesting. The listener is introduced to 8 Ballo, yes, his name is 8, as his mother never got around to giving him a real name. That is just the start of this intriguing and intense character. 8 grows up and becomes a private investigator, and I love myself a good PI story, especially with unique and interesting characters. 8 is a complex man, a veteran of WWI, a college graduate, and he just loves life, as simple as possible. Then, he is hired to find a young girl, a flapper of the time, making life a bit more ... well more of organized chaos, and complex. This is one of those stories that grabs you from the start and pulls you in. I'm a big fan of this author! The characters are so real, it's like being with them within the story. The listener just embarks on a superb journey. A definite attention grabber, so much I couldn't put it down. Both thrilling and intriguing, all the way to the end. I just love, love, love this story. The author's technique of raw, magnetic characters and great plotlines is a gift. It's a great story to follow and try to figure out what will happen next. 8 develops through out the story, and gives some insight to his past, and who he is and how he is now, with the grand instinct to do his job. Velma Gone Awry on audiobook is a definite listening recommendation by Amy's Bookshelf Reviews. I look forward to listening to many more titles by this author. Amy's Bookshelf Reviews recommends that anyone who listens to this book, to also write a review.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- AudioBookReviewer
- 05-11-23
Flappers, Mystery and Ballo
Eight is hired to track down Velma, the young daughter of a wealthy German businessman. Eight finds himself neck deep in the mob, multiple murders, and discovers he’s enamored with Velma. The question is, will Eight make it out alive?
The author, Matt Cost, is a riveting writer! He takes unique characters and blends them together into polished and captivating stories. The storyline was smooth and flawless, authentic not only historically but true to the characters as well. He develops each character in time with the story and with depth that is intriguing and engaging. Cost is adept at building emotional connections between the listener and the main characters. Granted, you may not love all the characters, but you will respond to them! Cost is versatile and easily captures the attention of the listener/reader.
The narrator, Colin Martin is impressive. He gives each character a unique voice that captures and projects the personality of each character in rich tones. He speaks clearly and with appropriate enthusiasm. Between Cost and Martin, the story came to life!
I loved this book! It was well-written and reflected the noir genre accurately. A must listen.
There were no issues with the quality or production of this audiobook.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sarah
- 02-01-24
Familiar faces in a fresh story
With the first mention of Dorothy Parker, I was intrigued. In VELMA GONE AWRY, author Matt Cost brings “Dottie” to life with all the wit and snark I always imagined. Her Algonquin Circle counterparts Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald also make an appearance, as do Bugsy Siegel, Babe Ruth, and other names of the era. But these familiar faces aren’t just cameos; they are essential players in Cost’s novel that skillfully weaves historical mystery with suspense, romance, and a little action. At the center of the story is 8 Ballo, who is not your typical hardened detective. He’s a complex mix of street-wise and philosophical, a sort of renaissance man-cop who brings to mind Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, and other classic noir detectives. 8 holds his own against the more colorful cast members, including the flamboyant Velma—especially when the reader gets a glimpse into his past. Matt Cost draws you into a vivid landscape of 1920s Brooklyn with an atmosphere that is elegant and alluring on one side, gritty and dangerous on the other. The dialog is sharp, the settings and characters well illustrated, and the pacing perfect. A great story that takes the reader on a delightful trip back in time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!