Published: 3rd March 2012 (print)/6th August 2012 (audio) 
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia/Bolinda Audio
Pages: 364 pages/7 discs
Narrator: Georgie Parker
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Mystery
★ ★ ★ – 3 Stars
When a secretive American cult moves to the Gold Coast, freelance journalist Scout Davis’s investigative antennae start quivering. She sets out to expose the cult’s lunatic beliefs and bizarre practices, but when she learns the identity of a recent recruit, her quest becomes personal. And dangerous.
But Scout has her secrets too. In the dead of night she sneaks out with an underground group of yarn bombers to decorate the locality with artworks. The next mission ticks all the right boxes – it’s risky, difficult and extremely silly. However, Scout has a sneaking suspicion that the local police sergeant, Rafe Kelly, is hot on her tail.
Jess from The Never Ending Book Shelf reviewed this a while back and since then I have been keen to read it. It came across my desk at work and I borrowed it right away to give it a go and I was… satisfied, I think that’s the best word to use.
The story itself is quite interesting, the investigation into a cult and the second mystery and investigation at the school is really good. Scout is a great investigative journalist and seeing how she maps out her stories and her plans are a nice insight into the mind of someone in her profession. She is headstrong and good at her job, she is clever and creative and seeing her work is an engaging part of the story. But having said that, I wasn’t a fan of Scout herself at times. Yes, admittedly, she is strong and confident and snarky and sarcastic and knows how to laugh and enjoy life, but she also isn’t the most faithful, and while she is having adulterous thoughts about a friend she doesn’t seem the least bit guilty. I kept waiting for her to snap out of it, to realise she couldn’t have these thoughts while her partner is overseas. It annoyed me she didn’t try to stop herself and that she went on with no remorse. It didn’t make you like her as a character in that regard.
Also while the guerrilla knitting part was interesting, I couldn’t see the point in relation to the rest of the story. It was more like a side quest that had no relation to anything else. It is like Groff has just put a few weeks of Scout’s life together and is telling us. Which is fine, but while the rest of the events sort of blended together or connected in some way, this never really needed to be there in terms of story.
This snippet of a life approach is supported by the fact Groff goes into a lot of detail about Scout’s day to day business, a lot of little details and descriptions are included about what she does, from shopping to what she eats and her daily routine. Whether this has to do with her diabetes and Groff felt like in the daily routine we needed to know the practices and how they fit into her life otherwise it wasn’t believable I’m not sure. When exciting things happen it all comes back to her diabetes and how it comes into play. Whether it would be as saturated with detail and description if she didn’t have diabetes I don’t know, I’m not sure I really needed to know every little thing Scout did though.
As a narrator Georgie Parker probably isn’t the best choice and maybe this also came into play of how I enjoyed the story. She adds emotion as she reads into odd places and doesn’t read it…I don’t want to say normally, but she pauses at odd times in sentences, it’s very casual and seems like a fun activity rather than trying to read the book as it were. Not to mention there is little difference in the voices she uses for characters, sometimes it disappearing altogether at times. Granted you don’t always need it, but it was something I noticed. Like all audiobooks you get used to some things, but I couldn’t quite get used to Georgie’s style and her voice annoyed me more often than not, it kept bringing me out of the story and while I accepted her style, I never stopped noticing it like I have done with other audio books when I become more invested in the story than the voice telling it.
Overall it was interesting for the investigative style and the story surrounding it. Groff frames the story well and shows how Scout moves from one part of her research into another, how she fits it into her day with life’s little dramas and adventures. The writing is good, the action and suspense was good, the balance of the serious and the every day worked well and Groff flows from one event to the next successfully. It was enjoyable and I might have to find the next book to see if it really gets me into the series and maybe see more of the Guerilla Knitters in action.
You can purchase Mad Men, Bad Girls, and the Guerilla Knitters Institute via the following
Audio
She got her fairytale ending — but life had other plans …
Hamlet’s father has just died. By the time they’ve filled in the grave his mother has remarried. Hamlet suspects foul play, and it’s troubling his spirit. Or maybe he was always troubled. Ophelia is in love with him. His best friend Horatio can’t work him out. Then, on a cold, still night, Hamlet meets the ghost of his father…
