Blood Moon

A Robert Payne Mystery, Book 1

By: Ed Gorman

Narrated by: Mark Douglas Nelson

Former FBI agent and psychological profiler Robert Payne is on the trail of a serial killer. A 12 year old girl has been murdered and mutilated, and the detective assigned to the case wound up dead. Now Nora Conners, the girl's wealthy mother, has hired Payne to solve the murder and bring closure. After narrowing his search to three men, a televangelist, a honey salesman, and an art teacher, all living in the small Iowa town of New Hope, Payne begins to narrow the field, posing as a journalist.

That's just the start. As the daughter of one of the suspects joins the list of victim, and the woman who hired him is murdered, Payne finds himself on a race to solve the case before he himself is implicated.

Taut, suspenseful, and filled with the quirky details and character flaws that are the hallmark of Ed Gorman's fiction, Blood Moon is a wonderful introduction to a very memorable character. Be sure to follow his adventures through the other three Robert Payne novels, Hawk Moon, Voodoo Moon, and Harlot's Moon.

©1994 Ed Gorman (P)2012 David N. Wilson

Great book; tedious listen.

This was not a performance. It was simply someone reading a book. If the story hadn't been so good I would not have stuck with it. No character inflections or emotion what so ever. Too bad.

Tried to be too clever

This book had some good ideas and a strong main character. I found that the twists and turns were contrived and not very well executed.

Sick content - bad narration

The reader leaves MUCH to be desired... and as some have pointed out some of the material is extremely disturbing, in this case I feel having had the narration so droll it made it a little less disgusting to "hear" not less disgusting as context. you may feel it's jumping all over the place and really it is... it SOMEWHAT comes together in the end. I don't recommend on any level.

a rather stupid story with barely there narration

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I'd change pretty much everything. The hero starts o'k but by the end he is blindly walking into such glaringly obvious traps that one starts wondering how that guy had managed to survive and even become a private detective.
The setting (especially the end) is so melodramatically bad - it becomes morbidly funny. I kept expecting Jaws to appear, gnashing his iron teeth :) Poor puppies, rats, underground cellars, dropping guns, girls killed by dozens (all the while poor reader wonders what was the real FBI doing while dozens and dozens of kids kept dissapearing, unfortunately the author is not bound by such realistic concerns).
I do not mind gory when gory is necessary but this was excessive, over the top and mostly not needed. O'K, we know the main villain is a sadistic SOB after the first puppy - how many more explicit sadistic scenes does a reader need?

Would you ever listen to anything by Ed Gorman again?

Most definitely not.

What about Mark Douglas Nelson’s performance did you like?

Nothing. But I would be sorry for anybody who had to narrate such trash.

Could you see Blood Moon being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Please, don't.

Any additional comments?

Feel like reading about Dr.Lecter - need a dose of elegant smarts LOL

Decent storyline but wordy

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Probably, yes. In a movie the storyline would be there but the over abundance of descriptive words would not.

Any additional comments?

The overall book was good. The storyline was enjoyable. I just found that it was so incredibly wordy and overly descriptive that it was distracting. If I could talk to the author it would be to leave a bit to the reader's imagination.