Review copy was received from Kindle Unlimited. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
A Killing on the Hill by Robert Dugoni Narrator: Robert Dugoni
Published by Brilliance Audio on April 9, 2024
Genres: Historical Mystery
Length: 11 hours, 29 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible
Seattle, 1933. The city is in the grips of the Great Depression, Prohibition, and vice. Cutting his teeth on a small-time beat, hungry and ambitious young reporter William “Shoe” Shumacher gets a tip that could change his career. There’s been a murder at a social club on Profanity Hill—an underworld magnet for vice crimes only a privileged few can afford. The story is going to be front-page news, and Shoe is the first reporter on the scene.
The victim, Frankie Ray, is a former prizefighter. His accused killer? Club owner and mobster George Miller, who claims he pulled the trigger in self-defense. Soon the whole town’s talking, and Shoe’s first homicide is fast becoming the Trial of the Century. The more Shoe digs, the more he’s convinced nothing is as it seems. Not with a tangle of conflicting stories, an unlikely motive, and witnesses like Miller’s girlfriend, a glamour girl whose pretty lips are sealed. For now.
Robert Dugoni is an auto-read for me. I love the series I have read, but A Killing on the Hill is a standalone. I liked this story of a journalist for a paper, writing about a big murder case. The author has a note which talks about how it relates to a real life case during this timeframe.  The beginning of the Depression has the corrupt businessmen having the only money and everyone else is suffering.
We have a young man “Shoe” who has left Kansas to come to Seattle to try to earn money and send back to his parents. He is an earnest, hard-working guy and perhaps that is why his boss sends him out on a big murder case. The police also allow him to go with them to question witnesses, get other evidence and eventually to come into court to write up the trial events.
Shoe has plenty of personal life to support the overall story. He has a nice landlady. There are other experienced reporters who don’t like him getting the scoops. He meets a young lady in the bakery where he stops for coffee in the morning and eventually succeeds in dating her. His father, at home, loses his job and eventually has a heart attack. The financial situation there is dire without his income and the added medical bills.
Things get pretty exciting as Shoe figures out why the murder happened. There’s big money involved and it seems those in politics and law enforcement are also on the take and looking for it. It’s dicey for our young man but he comes out well in the end.
Narration:
It doesn’t always work when the author does the narration but I usually really enjoy it. The author certainly knows the characters, pronunciations and the emotions for the story. I really enjoyed the narration and was comfortable with both his male and female voices. I was able to listen at my normal 1.5x speed.
Listen to a clip: HERE
About Robert Dugoni
Robert Dugoni is the New York Times, #1 Amazon, and #1 Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of the Tracy Crosswhite series: My Sister’s Grave, Her Last Breath, In the Clearing, The Trapped Girl and Close to Home, as well as the short prequels The Academy and Third Watch. The police procedural featuring Seattle Homicide Detective Tracy Crosswhite has kept Dugoni in the Amazon top 10 for more than three years and sold more than 4 million copies. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, released April 2018. Dugoni’s first series featured attorney David Sloane and CIA agent Charles Jenkins.
He is the winner of the Nancy Pearl Award for fiction, a two-time nominee for the Harper Lee Award for Legal Fiction, A two-time nominee for the Mystery Writer’s of America Edgar Award and a two-time nominee for the International Thriller of the year. His non-fiction expose, The Cyanide Canary, was a 2004 Best Book of the Year. He is published in more than 30 countries and two dozen languages.
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I read all types of books but my favorites are urban fantasy and romantic suspense.I like some romance and some action / adventure / mystery in everything.I like sex in my books but please, only between TWO people.Intimate conversation is equally important to the sex in a book.It lets me see the characters.The other thing I enjoy is humor.
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Yay! I wasn’t sure if you’d get this one and I’m glad it was a good listening experience for you, Anne💜
Like everything I have read from this author, it was well done.
I love that this is a historical mystery in the classic American detective noir fashion. Even better that its standalone and I can try out the author’s work. I’m wary of authors doing their own narration, but sounds like he was fab for you.
yes it’s a departure from most of his work which is more contemporary but I liked it. His author’s note explains it is based on facts from actual events. I rather like an author being a narrator but I know it isn’t always good.
Glad the author narrating worked for you! It’s so hit-or-miss!
I usually enjoy author narrated books but I know they don’t always work out.
I haven’t read anything by this author though I have several of his books on my TBR. I love the sound of this one – especially with the time period.
Thanks for letting me know I didn’t rate A Grave Robbery on my post. I fixed it! I didn’t give it a full 5 stars but close with 4.5. Such a good series!
This would probably be the one of his I would think you would enjoy most. But I LOVE his Tracy Crosswhite series. It’s a police procedural but so well written, great plot, characters.