The Arizona Triangle

A Jo Bailen Detective Novel

De: Sydney Graves

Narrado por: Stacy Gonzalez

In the vein of the bestselling California noirs of Sue Grafton and Sara Gran, a whodunnit about loyalty, love, and the legacy of trauma featuring a hardboiled, queer private eye whose latest case takes her deep into her own complicated past.

On the cusp of forty, Justine Bailen, better known as Jo, works for an all-female detective agency based in Tucson, Arizona. While staking out a cheating spouse, she learns that her long-estranged best friend from childhood, Rose, is missing, and that Rose’s mother wants to hire Jo to find her. This case is all kinds of wrong for Jo, but she has no choice but to head back to her hometown, an hour north and a world away from Tucson.

Back in Delphi, she learns that her high school boyfriend, Tyler—who is probably part of the reason her friendship with Rose went south—is the cop assigned to the case. It doesn’t take long for Jo to realize that he’s all mixed up in it, too. To have any hope of learning the truth about Rose’s disappearance, Jo must finally face the demons she thought she’d escaped.

©2024 Sydney Graves (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

Clever, Intricate, and Satisfying

The pace of the book ramps up suddenly, much earlier than you’d expect. Then it turns into what you think is going to work out exactly as you’d expect, and then it suddenly starts racing toward some dark, unknown finish line.

I like Jo and sympathize with her. What young person hasn’t been baffled by arbitrary rejection at least once in their lives? I hope there are more Jo Bailen books coming.

Most uninteresting

The narrator has a high pitched annoying voice which when added to the unexciting plot results in a disappointing listening experience.

Not the best

The main character is not believable as an experienced private detective. The characters are not relatable. The final reveal is not believable and contrived. Not the best detective novel.

Slow moving and annoying

Padded writing with too much description of unimportant stuff to stretch the book. Implausible plot.

A huge NO—don’t spend your time on this one

I intensely disliked this book. I felt like it started slowly, but I stuck with it. But it just wandered around in the desert – around and around and around. And the ending is stunningly absurd and eye rolling to me. I am not minimizing the subject matter that drives the ending. But this is no way to tackle it. One giant UGH from me on this book. So off-putting as a reading and listening experience.

Equally bad for me was the narration. I appreciate the effort, but the attempts at the various voices were like nails on a chalkboard. Never again will I spend time or money on a book read by this person.

Setting nice

I liked the ambiance of the setting -Tucson area - but did not like some of the errors in pronunciation by the reader. The writer wrote a good mystery but made some errors (e.g., scorpions sting they don’t bite) and rattlesnakes don’t strike out of hunger - strikes are defensive. These things do not detract from a good story but diminish the overall feel.

Jo is a well written character and very appealing. Interesting relationships among the key players.

There is not much reality to the settings other than brief mentions of common locations in Tucson. I had hoped for more real places.