The Widower’s Two-Step

A Tres Navarre Mystery, Book 2

By: Rick Riordan

Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte

Rick Riordan’s first book in the Tres Navarre series, Big Red Tequila hit the mystery market like a Texas tornado. Readers couldn’t get enough of its hero’s offbeat combination of academic degrees, tai chi skills, and nose for danger. When the second adventure, Widower’s TwoStep, was published, it quickly earned an Edgar Award. Instead of accepting a teaching position at the university, Tres is finishing up his apprenticeship for a private investigator’s license. He’s doing a poor job of surveillance on the fiddle player in a promising honkytonk band: she is shot in broad daylight while he watches. Shaken, Tres begins an investigation on his own. It’s not long before he discovers that some people will do anything to capture a lucrative recording contract. With suspense as sizzling as the southwestern sun, and a truly colorful cast of characters, The Widower’s TwoStep is a hit with mystery lovers well beyond the Lone Star State. Narrator Tom Stechschulte’s performance adds just the right spice to Tres’ character.

Crack another case with Tres Navarre.©1998 Rick Riordan (P)2002 Recorded Books, LLC

AN INTERESTING TEXAS MYSTERY

If you could sum up The Widower’s Two-Step in three words, what would they be?

MUSIC, MONEY, DEATH

Who was your favorite character and why?

Tres Navarre. He's intelligent, educated and prone to violence.

What does Tom Stechschulte bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He does a great job of bringing the characters and story to life.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No. It was too long.

Lots of fun for native San Antonians!!!

I've walked a lot of miles listening to stories of Tres Navarre. The stories are good, but the details of my beloved home town (I've been gone for 40 years) make me feel like I'm wearing an old favorite sweater. Thank you Rick Riordan!

Middling, meandering, dated.

I remember reading Mr. Riordan's books when they came out in print and being mildly amused. Tres Navarre is a likable character, a literate PI from Texas. However, now the genre seems to have passed by Mr. Riordan. With Tim Hallinan, Thomas Perry, Lou Berney and the like, we can read the work of much better writers. Mr. Riordan has a sense of humor, and Chapter 1 sets us up to think that this book will be much more interesting than it is. For one thing, Mr. Riordan has never met a word that he didn't like. The books are about twice as long as they should be, which I guess is done to make them the standard 300+ page novel. Someone once asked Elmore Leonard why his books were so popular. He said, "I leave out the parts that people skip." Mr. Riordan leaves out nothing. In this book we hear WAY too much exposition, way too much about the Southern country music scene and all the miserable crooks behind the scenes. There are too many characters that we don't care a thing about. For instance, Tres's sometime supervisor, Irenya. She adds nothing to the book other than her kid, Jem. Also, Mr. Stechshulte is an average narrator, and his voicing of this particular woman is grating and unpleasant. A good editor would have cut her. Better to listen to eight hours of Elmore Leonard than twelve hours of Rick Riordan. This series is only for Texan fans of the genre. The rest of us really don't care how many rest stops there are between Austin and San Antonio.

San Amtonio detective

Riordan is a South Texas treasure. Before he made it big with Percy Jackson, he gave us private dick Tres Navarre and a world well known to the many societies that make Austin/San Antonio our home.

better than average

It's a decent story, well read, but I kept wondering how some of the recurrent characters fit in, a sign to me that it didn't hold my interest. The story is a good idea, I like the writer's style and dialogue. Maybe I'll try another in the series, especially if it goes on the daily special sale.