My original Atacama Red audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

Pablo Nelson is a small town detective who retires after failing to uncover the brutal murder of a child. Haunted by his failure, he moves to his deceased mother’s home town of Atacama in the Chilean desert. A series of mysterious murders draw him out of his self-imposed exile to help the local detective.

The bodies pile up as the mystery deepens. Everything points to drug lords and their strange connection to a local observatory and two astronomers who may not be who they seem. But Pablo doesn’t buy it and digs deeper, each time finding more reasons to be suspicious of the obvious.

The setting in the Chilean desert is intriguing and the landscape is described with compelling detail. Unfortunately, the characters feel unrealistic and forced. An astronomer dealing drugs? A Chilean detective immediately sharing her findings with an inn-keeper from America? The listener wants to like this mystery but the connections seem too far-fetched to stay involved. Many mystery lovers want to try to guess who-done-it. This one just doesn’t give you that opportunity.

Dan Carroll performs the story. While he has a good voice and is pleasant to listen to, he has a strange way of dragging a sentence and pausing before the last word. He sometimes stumbles over words and pronounces the many Spanish words poorly. A native speaker would have been a better choice for this performance. As with all audiobooks, listen to a sample first to see if Mr. Carroll’s performance is right for you.

While the story does have some good ideas, there is little left to the imagination. There are so many mystery novels. This one doesn’t really bring anything new to the genre but may be a pleasant listen for some. See if the sample gets your attention before you commit.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author. ( )