The Proof Is in the Poison

A Southern Homebrew Mystery, Book 2

By: Diane Kelly

Narrated by: Minka Wiltz

Moonshine shop owner Hattie Hayes is ready to lend a hand when a mystery starts brewing at a train convention in Chattanooga, TN, in this charming cozy mystery series.

Now that her moonshine shop is up and running, Hattie Hayes can focus her efforts on expanding her fledgling business to events in the area, like the Chattanooga Choo Choo Model Train Convention, which is running full steam ahead at the convention center down the block. Hattie is all aboard, seizing this perfect opportunity to promote her Southern homebrew to the folks who have come to the city for the annual event.

But when an attendee dies after drinking some of Hattie’s moonshine, she’ll need to prove her innocence. Between tight-lipped train hobbyists and competitors for a coveted convention prize, Hattie has a wide array of suspects to choose from, and she’ll need to use all the tricks up her sleeve to make sure her moonshine business can survive a murderer and stay on track.

©2022 Diane Kelly (P)2022 Penguin Audio

What’s wrong with the narrator?

I’m certainly glad I was not influenced by the review that preceded The Proof is in the Poison! There’s always a little grumbling and a little hurrahing with the change of a series,even a trilogy, narrator but the review that came out first on Poison was absolutely vitriolic! The reviewer chided the pace of the presentation advising the listener to set the speed up to 1.3 as the narrator dragged and couldn’t perform a soft, Southern drawl something desperately needed for this series which is set in Tennessee. The reviewer further stated that new narrator slipped in and out of the Southern drawl so often that the listener was never quite sure what part of the country the story referred to. This was a criticism I couldn’t even begin to acknowledge since at no time did the narrator NOT deliver anything other than the soft, descriptive Southern language we immediately identify as the American South.
At no time was the delivery of the narrator inconsistent or shifting back and forth between various accents. I really felt the second narrator gave the best reading and I’m hoping she’ll be doing the rest of the series.

Listen at 1.3-it’s not as painful

A decent story almost derailed by the wrong narrator. Iiittt ttaakkeeess aarroounndd aaaa mmiinnuuuttee ppeerrr ssseeennntttaannncccee for this narrator to drawl out the text… the last narrator was a bit over the top on the accents but this is just painful. I listened between 1.3-1.4 and it was bearable. Please find another narrator or go back to the original. Otherwise I don’t think I can listen to the next one.