A Novella Series: (Virtue Falls 0.5)
ISBN: 1466862696
Publisher: St Martin's Press
Publication Date: 07/01/14
Format: e-book
My Rating: 5 Stars
From bestselling author Christina Dodd comes The Listener, a story of mystery and intrigue in which misfit and computer security expert Cornelia Markum hacks into a text conversation between unidentified Virtue Falls residents … and realizes she’s stumbled into a murder plot.
My Review
THE LISTENER, (Virtue Falls #0.5), Christina Dodd’s e-short story novella, and a tantalizing prequel for the VIRTUE FALLS,(#1 in the series, coming Sept 9, 2014), a town, founded in 1902, a Vacation Destination on the Washington Coast and Home of the World Famous Virtue Falls Canyon, population 2487. Yummy! An intriguing town with quirky and witty characters which gather at the Oceanview Café, (locals and tourists, alike), where folks wander in for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Where cops and truckers come in for fresh donuts, and others gather to drink coffee, use free Wi-Fi, eat pie, and get caught up on the latest gossip— where we meet Kateri (Coast Guard Commander), Rainbow (waitress-holds the town together), and Cornelia. Cornelia is quite the interesting character (she works for government, computer whiz, genius, a little odd, smart, makes good money, where routine is imperative, and possibly slight autistic), married to Mason, and her mother left when she was twelve and has two older sisters. She is an observer of human behavior and uses her computer skills to eavesdrop by hacking into emails and texts when she is bored. After all, texting is human contact in the most distilled form. (She is not great at verbal communication). She thinks of hacking, like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates; she never knows what she is going to get or who is sending it. One day she discovers while hacking, more than chocolates--two people planning a murder by poisoning. At the end of this mystery, readers get a preview of the upcoming VIRTUE FALLS, as beautiful Elizabeth Banner, a respected geologist at age twenty-seven, walks in the Café, the girl who watched her father kill her mother with scissors. She has not set foot in the town for twenty-three years as the memory of her mother, Misty Banner’s murder is still fresh on everyone’s mind. She is back, not to reunite with her father, Charles Banner, a gifted scientist, currently at the Honor Mountain Memory Care Facility but to study the Pacific Rim tectonic plates and subduction zones, researching alluvial deposits. The town could only hope she does not follow in her father’s footsteps. (he pioneered the study). A compelling novella and my first book by Dodd-loved it. Excited to read an ARC of VIRTUE FALLS, which I am starting tonight–cannot wait. A very intriguing mystery!
