Reviewed by Stephen K.
TITLE: Jon’s Spooky Corpse Conundrum
Series: Jon’s Mysteries #3
AUTHOR: A.J. Sherwood
NARRATOR: Lloyd Thomas
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 6 hours 41 Minutes
RELEASE DATE: January 12th 2021
BLURB:
I’ve investigated some pretty strange cases in my life, but I have to say this is a first. A corpse—a murder victim—has gone missing during the middle of an investigation, and no one has any clue where it went. Psy is called in to clear the investigative team, make sure they’re not an accomplice. It’s a four hour drive outside of Nashville, to a place famous for being haunted, so none of us are particularly eager to go.
And then we arrive on scene and I see who we’re dealing with and I want nothing more than to turn around and go right back to Nashville.
This case is complicated and strange, and absolutely nothing is as it seems at first glance. Even with my eyes, it’s going to take some digging to get to the truth.
REVIEW:
This is the third book in the series but Jon’s Downright Ridiculous Shooting Case & Jon’s Crazy Head-Boppin’ Mystery have been reviewed here previously.
I’d like to add my own two cents worth about them here before my review of book 3 but if you’d rather NOT see that, please feel free to skip down to the section labeled Book 3.
In my opinion Book 1 (Jon’s Downright Ridiculous Shooting Case) was, in many ways, an almost perfect M/M audio-book. It was told in first person with the smart, snarky and charming psychic Jon as the storyteller.
But Jon isn’t the stereotypical psychic. He doesn’t communicate with dead people or read cards or crystals. Instead he sees people’s auras. The colors in their “meridians” reveal their current emotions and the emotional impact of the past experiences that helped to shape their personality. e.g. committing murder leaves a permanent mark one’s psyche. This also makes Jon a near perfect lie detector. It also makes him anathema to anything that uses electricity. He’s fried more laptops, microwaves, and cell phones than he can recall, and has resorted to driving a HumVee because it’s engine is shielded against EMPs (Electromagnetic pulses)
In book one Jon explains a lot about what his life is like, and is paired up with Dominic Avili a hulking ex-military policeman of Tongan ancestry who looks even more intimidating due to scars he received while protecting someone. This burly teddy-bear of a man with an over-protective streak is the perfect foil to Jon’s vulnerability and penchant for attracting people who want him dead. The book’s primary focus was Jon’s transition from lone wolf to a happily partnered out gay man.
The book was masterfully narrated by the late Kenneth Obi who perfectly captured Jon’s Tennessee Blue-tick accent (Think Jack Daniels & Coke.) Obi gave distinctive voices to the dozen or so other main characters in that book, as well.
Book 2, Jon’s Crazy Head-Boppin’ Mystery was narrated by Lloyd Thomas who took up the reins after Obi’s 2020 death. In that book Jon and Dominic deepened their involvement and become room-mates as well as work partners. The book continues in the world-building, and focuses on a mystery where women are being assaulted. The two MCs do a lot of negotiating about their developing relationship. Jon is terrified of alienating Dominic from over-exposure. We get to see a side of M/M relationships that one doesn’t often see in more superficial romance novels, the accommodation/adjustment phase.
Both men bear the scars of their pasts, for Jon that includes divorced parents, being “kicked out” of his family home at 17, and a college boyfriend who couldn’t deal with the side effects of Jon’s psychic abilities. Despite Donovan’s physical scars, he’s had relatively healthy supportive life to date and his struggle to get closer to Jon while allowing Jon the time he needs to trust others (and to trust himself) is something I’d like to see more of in M/M fiction. Happiness isn’t just a switch that we can flick.
Thomas did an excellent job narrating this story. After all, Obi’s performance in the first novel was a difficult act to follow. This second novel was also more difficult to adapt to audio because it follows the more traditional format of switching between the perspectives of the two main characters.
The numerous characters are voiced by Thomas in a professional manner. I did miss Jon’s Tennessee accent. It was so great in the first book but entirely missing here. (Maybe just the Coke without the Jack Daniels?) This might have been due to the introduction of a new character with a strong Texas accent. It might be more than Thomas was willing to take on to get the Tennessee and Texas accents to flow easily.
Instead he made masterful use of some of the book’s idiosyncrasies to add some audio flavor. Several bits of dialogue are actually phone calls, some private and some on speaker. Still others are heard through a microphone in another room. The audiobook recording makes those sound as one would expect them to; not just continue in the standard “narrator voice.” Thomas does make a few “vocal typos” (e.g.. calling Dominic’s father “Kane” although it’s clearly written Kanye) but those are easily forgivable and unless you’ve read the books, you’ll probably not notice.
Book 3
Book 3, and the subject of this review is Jon’s Spooky Corpse Conundrum. The agency is sending the boys out of town this time, and Jon runs into the father who abandoned him and his family when he was seven years old. The first novel was about a charming pair of guys falling in love. The second was about managing a relationship past the honeymoon stage. This one is about healing old family wounds and dealing with perceived familial wrongs.
The main characters in this series are portrayed distinctively. They emphasize dialogue and working through their differences. When it comes to relationships, all too many M/M authors appear to undervalue believability, even in fiction. Too many M/M books verge on the harlequin, with simple, cookie-cutter narratives that appear to be filler to bring the reader to “the feelings” and the happy ending.
The books in this series are full of “feel-good” moments throughout, not just at the happy ending. And it’s done without the reader feeling “talked down to,” or taken for granted. Some people, (particularly those people NOT raised in a comfortable middle class, mid-western home like I was) may find being surrounded by so many well meaning, likable people like we are in this book a bit too sweet. However, I believe the author does a good job of breaking through that sweetness with an intriguing mystery.
All three of these books share another unusual trait. While these all have standard “whodunnit” aspects to them, the villains aren’t simple two dimensional constructs. Because of Jon’s ability to see the emotions that underpin the culprit’s behavior, the author gives us a more understanding perspective of the culprit’s behavior. People in real life are very rarely entirely “evil.” They can be venal and selfish and insufficiently mindful of others, but there is generally some justification (at least in their own eyes) for what they do. Here that justification is brought to the front. It’s kind of nice to see that in fictional characters.
In book three, Lloyd Thomas returns to narrate, but he doesn’t seem to be working as hard as he did in the previous books. The book was again told from the alternating perspectives of Dominic and Jon, but several times Thomas sometimes “slipped” and used the wrong voice for a time. It wasn’t too often, and never lasted for an entire chapter, but more than once I thought… “That section should have been re-recorded.” There were also a number silly “voice typos” as well. One can misspeak and say “amiable” when they mean “amenable” and a few of those may slip through. However, when one is narrating a police drama style book, pronouncing “arraignment” as “arrangement” is just bit slip-shod.
That said, This is still a title that I’ve added to my wish list as I’ll undoubtedly re-listen to this one periodically.
RATING: 
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