right up there with Craig Johnson, William Kent Kreuger, Tony Hillerman and Michael Connelly though Connelly writes city, not country. My only complaint is the narrator. His voice is country rough which is fine – but he intones everything with unrelenting grimness, too. A coarser, earthy-er voice DOES NOT HAVE TO SOUND GRIM. This grimness strongly affects how The Sorrow Hand comes across, makes it heavy, drilling and hard to take. It buries the beauty, warmth and humor tucked in amidst the truly grim aspects of the story and makes this realism which is a definite strength of the novel – grimmer than it is and misrepresents the book. I almost quit listening at a couple of points because of this. I’m glad I waded through because it’s a – thank God for once – really good new book out there! It has quality writing, real substance, good plot, nature, touches of humor, human warmth and original and authentic details in plot and character backgrounds. The story also takes some thought provoking and NON-JUDGMENTAL sweeps through several “isms” in our present world.

If I were Dwight Holing I would insist on a different reader for his new book, The Shaming Eyes OR ask Steve Marvel to lighten up his interpretive rendering.