Open Season

The Joe Gunther Mysteries, Book 1

De: Archer Mayor

Narrado por: Tom Taylorson

Lt. Joe Gunther of the Brattleboro, Vermont, police force has a serious problem: in a community where a decade could pass without a single murder, the body count is suddenly mounting. Innocent citizens are being killed - and others set up - seemingly orchestrated by a mysterious ski-masked man.

Signs suggest that a three-year-old murder trial might lie at the heart of things, but it's a case that many in the department would prefer remained closed. A man of quiet integrity, Lt. Gunther knows that he must pursue the case to its conclusion, wherever it leads.

©2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Loved it!

I stumbled upon this book completely by accident. Lucky me!!

Joe Gunther is a great character. He's supposed to be small town but he's got some skills. From the first body to the last. Gunther was on point. The narrator was the perfect amount of "aw shucks" and GTFO. Loved it.

Male narrators

I was unable to connect with the story because the narrator’s attempts to “do” women’s voices were affected and at times off-putting. I kept thinking that if I were reading on the page I would never have given harsh/nagging tones to a simple sentence just because it was from a female character. Tried repeatedly to get into the story and now I’m done.

Fine story, poorly recorded

The story was enjoyable and I would recommend reading the book. The recording for Audible was inconsistent. Volume came and went. Often the voices of all but the main character would be so loud I had to turn down the volume. In comparison, the voice of the main character was so low as to be inaudible.

Great story from 1988

Enjoyed the story, but had to keep in mind the date of original publication. Things are out of place with today. Unless you can relate to life before cell phones then the story may be hard to understand at times.

Gripping

To that this tale is gripping is surprising to me. It is a simple story if a bit depressing. But it kept my interest and wanting to see what happened next. I didn’t bother to try to figure out who done it. There were not enough easy clues for me to follow. In my defense I had suspected it was a relative that was driving the bus. I also knew the poor guy that was in jail was innocent. Everyone knew and were either hoping they were wrong or worried they would not be able to prove it. Not proving it would have left him in prison. For those of you that don’t know it our Criminal “Justice” System is broken badly. Our Supreme Court ruled sometime ago that merely being innocent of a crime is not a reason to get out of jail or prison. If that is not wrong then I have no sense of right and wrong. If it isn’t insane and ridiculous then insanity and injustice don’t exist. For the uninitiated juries and judges and the police send innocent people to jail and prison every day. Egos keep some of them there every hour of everyday. Prosecutors, police, judges, and politicians do the same. They refuse to accept their failures and conspire to keep them from exposure. I can’t remember the state but an innocent guy known to be innocent and acknowledged to be wrongfully imprisoned remains in prison because a slimy governor refuses to act. And an uncaring unconcerned public refuses to hold that governor accountable. They have refused to demand he free the man and that he resign. The police still claim he is guilty out of some shameful egomaniacal stupidity. A system that accepts this as justice doesn’t really understand or know justice. We worship a former president that freed clearly criminal people. He didn’t free more to the best of my knowledge at least. He would have freed more and given more a free pass had a bunch of people not argued effectively for him not to do so. For the life of me I don’t understand why he listened. He had the power and would have suffered no consequences. In fact he may have been an even bigger hero. And one more thing for the ill informed while the system moves slowly it rarely moves based upon innocence or guilt. It moves looking for a mistake big enough to cause a review of the process. Not in the name of or sense of or search for justice. If the lawyers both sides didn’t do anything unacceptably wrong to whomever is looking at things at the moment nothing happens. If it is something that can be ignored or shoved under a rug so to speak nothing is done regardless of the innocence or guilt of the person. Women rarely get treated fairly because they are women. They are more likely to get lesser sentences though clearly not always. The system also favors the guilty with something to barter. If you have nothing to barter you will more likely get screwed as it compares to the person who can give the system someone it wants also. What we all forget is the system is us and we diminish our being by letting it remain as is. It is always supposed to be about what we can prove not what we want it to be. I was taught and learned that our system of injustice was based upon the let a thousand guilty go free rather than imprisoning one innocent. Unfortunately, our system and our beliefs don’t follow that program. TV, movies and books lie to us and allow us to believe there is a real system of justice. And now back to this tale. Egos managed to avoid keeping justice from being served. People failed to do the right things and still the good mostly prevailed. Too bad it cost so much to get there. The bus driver died but justice managed to be served. At least I think so. Happy reading/listening. The reader clearly a smoker or former one does a good job and was easy for me to listen to. He had a good range of emotion and compassion. He didn’t mess up the characters voices often. He kept a good pace and was easily understood. If you are new to audio books you will find many readers unintelligible. Also people you have no understanding as to why or how they are allowed to tell any stories to anyone but themselves. This is a good story done well by all.

I've found a new (old) series

If you can read a book of it's time without getting your modern senses offended, you will enjoy this book. Joe is an interesting character and it was fun to listen to a book that's all about detective work and not about technology used to solve crimes.
I'll read more of this series.

not for me

too much child suffering & unhealthy adult psychology for my taste. not a head space I enjoy

Open season

This was a good listen. Just not a favorite
Not sure why I didn't get into it as much as I usually do???

First I’ve heard about of series

Really good. I can’t wait to listen to the entire series. Great character development and writing

Fun to hear crime solving pre-computer and DNA day

I really quite enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the rest in the series. The narrator was excellent and the story unfolded without any plot lines that were unbelievable.

I really enjoyed hearing how hard they had to work to solve crimes without the aid of data banks, cell phones or DNA profiling. Just good detective work and intuition...