Faith Richards, Detroit's beloved TV meteorologist known as "The Fair Weather Friend," disappears during a dinner break and is found dead the next morning. As the city reels, memorials are staged, and the local news continually updates, it turns out that there was a note Faith sent to one of her colleagues at the station that helps to identify some possible suspects.
The story shifts through multiple perspectives to dive deeper into the woman behind that sunny public persona. This whole convolution of trying to pinpoint who did what is where the book fell off the rails for me. The characters, especially the fan girl Carol (my gosh, girlie, get a life) and some of Faith's coworkers (I'm looking at you Matt along with your fiancee, Tara) are just placeholders for the reveals to come. Nobody is falling for those obvious red herrings and what is meant to be a shocking reveal, wasn't. The mystery is transparent and even at the end, a big disappointment was the abruptness and the unfinished subplots without a fair and just conclusion.
I gave this a higher score than it probably merits because it was fast paced and easy to read in a single evening. The plot wanders through all the characters and I kept hoping for some rationale for decisions, but even the backstory of Faith is banal. I liked the author's previous book so much that I'm willing to give her next a try.
This brings me to my thoughts about the audio book. I was able to listen while reading along in the e-book ARC, both provided by the publishers. The narrator, Gail Shalan, has a voice that was grating and shrill. In addition, every female character sounded the same -- way too overwrought and discordant. They were indistinguishable so I was glad I had the book so I knew who was speaking. All that melodramatic gasping. In addition, yes, all the men in the story sounded exactly the same as well with just a bit of a lower pitch. This audio production would have benefited greatly with a larger cast and should have been done with all of the points of view in the story. I would not recommend a listen.
This is a standalone and is not part of any series.
Tags: murder, colleagues, secrets, weather, television,
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