Susan's Reviews > Auburn Ride

Auburn Ride is a quaint, easy read. I found it easy to dive into and easy to follow. It was the perfect thing to listen to while I puttered about the house. Delarosa is something of a dinosaur in a few of his ways but they work for him. The story felt a little like a hard boiled crime novel from the 70s that was yanked into the 21st century. There’s modern tech like cell phones but Delarosa himself was molded a few decades back.

Setting all the cliches aside, the pacing is great. There’s a good mix of action, mystery, character development, and reflection. Even though Katie takes her clothes off often, I still liked her character. She’s definitely goal oriented and not intimidated by the work. Mike, Delarosa’s partner in their private eye business and their bar, provides a base of operations, cold beer, and well-timed advice.

I knew right from the beginning that Claire, the red head, was trouble. The title kind of gives that away. Still, it was fun to guess at her true motivations. Over all, the mystery was a little predictable but still interesting to see how all the details locked into place.

While there are several ladies present in this story, they are almost always of romantic interests. The few who aren’t are still assessed by their looks and bed-ability. Delarosa doesn’t think overweight women are much fun in bed, which says something about Delarosa. It also meant there was this undertone of sexism throughout the story having all the women rated by their sexiness. If you can accept that as just a feature of the main character, then the rest of the story works well. All told, it was fun. 3.5/5 stars.

The Narration: Bill Lord works well as the main character Delarosa. At first, Lord has an unusual cadence, drawing out the last syllable of each sentence as if he’s building drama. It takes a little while, but eventually Lord finds a more natural cadence. Lord’s female character voices were feminine and he did have different voices for all the characters. Sometimes when 2 or more male characters were talking in a conversation, Lord’s voices blended together losing their distinction. There were no tech issues with this recording. 3.5/5 stars.