Shifty's Boys

Mick Hardin, Book 2

By: Chris Offutt

Narrated by: George Newbern

Mick Hardin is an Army CID officer home on leave, recovering from an IED attack and flirting with prescription painkillers, when a body is found in the center of town. It’s Barney Kissick, the local heroin dealer, and the city police see it as an occupational hazard. But when Barney’s mother, Shifty, asks Mick to take a look, he finds there’s more to the killing than it seems. Mick should be rehabbing his leg, signing his divorce papers, and getting out of town—and most of all, staying out of the way of his sister’s reelection as Sheriff—but he keeps on looking, and suddenly he’s getting shot at himself.

A dark, pacy crime novel about grief and revenge and the surprises hidden below the surface, Shifty’s Boys is a tour de force that confirms Mick Hardin as one of the most appealing new investigators in fiction.

©2022 Chris Offutt (P)2022 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Great story & amazing writing

I love Chris Offutt and this book is so good. I listened to it immediately after The Killing Hills.
The only complaint I have is that in the later chapters there are a few sections in the audio that are swapped. It skips ahead and then goes back to the skipped part. Once I figure out what was happening I could follow but it’s a bit annoying.

Awful narrator detracts from a good story

The narrator employs a weird speech pattern for most of the male charactors which I guess is supposed to indicate that they are taciturn hayseeds-- something generally associated with rural Maine. I found it incredible annoying.

Was probably a very good story

There were glaring technical difficulties with the audible copy I received. The narration jumped all over the place, especially in the last half of the aiudiobook. It made it impossible for me to tell what was going on sometimes, and other times created spoilers. Our hero would be having a lovely lunch with his new love interest, then suddenly he is exchanging bullets with the bad guys. At one point it skipped ahead to mention a character I wasn’t familiar with. The first half of the book was great. I read the book prior in the series and loved being with the characters again.
But overall I’m sorry I wasted my credit on it, because it was so chopped up and confusing in the second half of story, through no fault of the author or narrator. But I couldn’t enjoy it. I’m going to see if I can get my credit returned. Good luck with that hm? 😲

Messed up audio

This audiobook will stop mid-sentence, pick up a couple of sections ahead, read on, and sometimes return to where it veered off. Makes the story hard to follow. Hopefully audible will fix it.