Review: We Don't Talk About Emma

We Don't Talk About Emma by J.D. Barker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Narrated by Piper Goodeve
Presented by RB Media

Can't say this one really did much for me.

A cop goes out to kill a man who got away with rape, only to discover he's already been bumped off. The main suspect is the girl he got away with raping, and she's fled into the belly of New Orleans.

The story gets pretty messy from here, and for some reason Nikki has zero concerns about the fact that she was at the crime scene. Instead, everyone just assumes Emma is the killer and ignores any kind of actual crime solving while they commence the manhunt. So the biggest pull this story had is immediately swept under the rug.

I'm gonna be honest - I didn't really like any of these characters. There's a lot between Nikki and Keith that makes it seem like this is a sequel, yet it's supposed to be a standalone. Not sure what's up with that. The romance between the two felt clunky and awkward and mostly pointless.

There's also a confusing cast of villains with similar personalities and the audio had most of the voices sounding the same so I found it difficult to keep straight who everyone was. I was getting names mixed up a lot and not sure where other characters were relevant.

Aside from that, there's just really not a lot to this story. It's mostly just cops chasing Emma, and a couple of creative deaths here and there to try and stay interesting.

The narration was okay, with enough inflection to keep the story clear, but as mentioned the voices all sounded the same to me so it was hard to tell people apart. I'd give this narrator another go, though, as I think it's more a fault of generic characters.

All in all, okay for a freebie but I wouldn't go out and buy it, and crime fans won't find anything special here.

With thanks to NetGalley for an audio ARC

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