Graveyard

The Mutant Files, Book 3

By: William C. Dietz

Narrated by: Christina Delaine

Los Angeles, 2069. Decades after a bioterrorist attack decimated the population and left many of the survivors horribly mutated, the "norms" have forced mutants into dangerous areas known as red zones. And the tensions between the two groups are threatening to boil over....

LAPD detective Cassandra Lee is known for her single-mindedness, and right now she's got only one goal: track down the Bonebreaker, the man who murdered her father. But her quest for justice is derailed when LA comes under attack. The Aztec Empire, a Central American group determined to take back the US territories that their Spanish ancestors once controlled, has led a mutant army into California.

Suddenly caught in the middle of a war, Lee must put all her energy into keeping her city safe while unearthing the political secrets of LA's shady mayor. And with the Bonebreaker hunting her down, losing focus even for a second could mean death....

©2016 William C. Dietz (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Great series

RED ZONE-DEAD EYE & GRAVE YARD were great. Mutant file was incredible. Christina Delaine has my vote for best narrator. She was able to move between characters all the while giving the impression that there were other people narrating with her. It was great. Keep it up Bill/Christina.

Flat, random, and convoluted

It felt like the author stuck a bunch of ideas on a wall, threw darts at them, and wrote in a random stream of consciousness about which ever idea got hit next. There was the Aztec invasion of what’s left of the U.S., a bunch of politicians jockeying for power, cop Cassandra Lee’s love jailed, salacious paparazzi, and the Bonebreaker’s serial killing of cops.

To the extent these ideas connected, it felt like they did so in the most convoluted, ridiculous ways.
The invasion existed merely to have some explosions and create a background of chaos.
The politicians schemed but did nonsensical things like blackmailing a rival’s spouse to attempt to murder Lee … because you’d never send a pro to kill a cop when you could pressure some random,
white collar schmuck to do it. One guess as to how that turned out. Yep, it failed spectacularly.

Likewise the Bonebreaker went though these elaborate setups to murder Lee, like when he kills a coroner to assume his identity, then attempts to toss the body on a train because the body needs to never be found. Meanwhile I’m thinking about the fact that his killing pattern is to break down bodies so that nothing but bones are left and so, if he wanted the body not to be found, all he needed to do was handle that dead body the same as all of his prior ones.

This was a series of completely implausible plot points, which would have been okay except the characters are one dimensional cliches. If not for the phenomenal narration, I wouldn’t have finished this.