A Crack in Everything (Susan Callisto Mystery #1), by Angela Gerst (author), Xe Sands (narrator)

Blackstone Audiobooks, ISBN 9781455109708, September 2011

Susan Callisto has left the law firm where she started out as a real estate attorney for a career as a political consultant, supporting candidates for local office. When Charles Renfrow walks in, asking her to work on his campaign for Mayor of Telford, MA, offering a $20,000 retainer, she should be thrilled. She's not, in part because he's crowding her. But Renfrow is persistent, persuasive, and that $20,000 will make a big difference in her struggle to pay her bills. They make a handshake deal that she'll advise his campaign if he can get the necessary signatures by the filing deadline--just a few days away.

The B Team (The Human Division #1), by John Scalzi (author), William Dufris (narrator)

Audible Frontiers, January 2013

This is another short story, the first of thirteen connected shorts set in Scalzi's Old Man's War universe.

The Colonial Union has a major problem. They're no longer on speaking terms with Earth, so they no longer have Earth as a source of new recruits for the Colonial Defense Force, and they're a couple of generations away from being able to recruit sufficient numbers from their own colony worlds to meet their needs. And meanwhile, about two thirds of their previously divided and chaotically at odds rivals have joined together into the Conclave. The CU needs all the allies it can get, and a race that hasn't been interested in negotiating a deal before now is. They send off the very best diplomatic talent they have--and that team vanishes, their ship apparently destroyed, before the alien diplomatic team could even arrive.

Suddenly the CU is scrambling to save the situation and the negotiations, not to mention find out what happened to their ship. They have to work with what they have in range, though, and they don't have another "A Team" diplomatic team available. What they have available is Ambassador Ode Abumwe and her workaday "B Team" who normally  handle much lower-level, routine diplomatic chores.

This time they're being tossed in at the deep end, on no notice, and need to resolve a major crisis, as well as figure out what caused it and who's behind it.

Classic Scalzi. Recommended.

The 7th Month: A Detective D. D. Warren Story (Det. D.D. Warren #5.5) by Lisa Gardner (author), Kirsten Potter (narrator)

Brilliance Audio, ISBN 9781469248387, December 2012

This is a short story, not a full novel.

Boston homicide detective D.D. Warren is seven months pregnant, bored being stuck on desk duty, and not succeeding in making up her mind on whether to move in with her boyfriend & father of her child, Alex. So it's a welcome distraction when movie producer Donnie Bilger walks in to the station, looking for a police detective to act as a technical consultant on his new movie. He had one, a retired cop, but that guy has apparently taken off on vacation with his very ample paycheck.

It's a lot of money for at most a few days' work, and D.D. can feel useful rather than feeling like a lump. What could go wrong? What could possibly go wrong?

This is a great introduction to the series if you're not familiar with it, and a nice little extra for regular readers of the series.

Recommended.

I received a free copy as a special offer from Audible.com

Caveat Emptor (Gaius Petreius Ruso #4), by Ruth Downie (author), Simon Vance (narrator)

Tantor Media, ISBN 9781452650876, January 2011

Ruso and Tilla have arrived back in Britain, newlyweds and in need of a place to live and a job for Ruso. Ruso's old friend Valens, from his army medic days, has found him one--as an investigator for the procurator, to locate the missing tax money, not to mention the missing tax collector, Julius Asper, from the town of Verulamium.

Asper's lover Cama (spelling optional since I listened to the audiobook), traveled the twenty miles from Verulamium to Londinium to report Asper's disappearance and what she believes to be the perfidy of the town leaders. She quickly winds up at Valens' house, giving birth to Asper's baby with Tilla as mid-wife.

Friendly Fire, by Nathan & Jennifer Winograd

CreateSpace, ISBN 9781479268931, October 2012

It's fair to say up front that Nathan Winograd is not a calm, easy-going kind of guy. He's a passionate advocate for shelter reform and animal welfare, and he does not mince words or give quarter to those who disagree with him.

This is a tough discussion of what's wrong in the American animal sheltering system, what can be done about it, and what, or rather, in his opinion, who the problems are.

The Winograds discuss, in sometimes painful detail, what's wrong in many American shelters: bad hours, bad hygiene, bad procedures, poor standards, high kill rates that have nothing to do with the animals that come in and everything to do with bad standards of care, inaccessibility, and obstacles to, rather than promotion of, adoption.

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (Vorkosigan Saga #15), by Lois Mcmaster Bujold (author), Grover Gardner (narrator)

Blackstone Audiobooks, November 2012

I've waited for years for Ivan Vorpatril to get his own story. He's been playing the not-overly-bright clown for long enough, and it's good to see him get a little bit of the attention he has carefully avoided.

As the quietly capable but unambitious staff officer to a Barrayaran admiral, Ivan has been enjoying his bachelor life. Both his cousins, Emperor Gregor and Imperial Auditor Lord Miles Vorkosigan, have cooperated by producing heirs that make Ivan much less a target of interest. All is going smoothly, until Byerly Vorrutyer shows up at the door of his temporary apartment on Komarr, asking him to please go charm and protect a young woman whom Byerly believes may be on the hit list of a crime syndicate he's investigating.

The Generals: American Military Command From World War II to Today, by Thomas E. Ricks (author), William Hughes (narrator)

Blackstone Audiobooks, ISBN 9781470817275, October 2012

Thomas Ricks gives us very thoughtful history of the Army's general officer corps from World War Two forward to the near-present. (At the time of writing, David Petraeus was still Director of the CIA.) Be warned that it's not "objective;" Ricks has a definite viewpoint, and serious concerns about how we are currently training and educating the Army's senior officers.

He begins with WWII, George C. Marshall, and the generals that Marshall, and under him, Dwight D. Eisenhower, mentored and promoted. Marshall valued strategic thinking, a positive outlook, teamwork and cooperation, and an energetic commitment to moving forward. They easily and frequently removed officers, including generals, who were not performing adequately or achieving battlefield success, but they also often gave those officers second chances, new combat commands, rather than being relieved being a career-ender, as it became later.

Audition for Murder, by Susan Sussman (author), Sarajane Avidon (author), Stephanie Brush (narrator)

Books in Motion, ISBN 9781581164732, 2002

Chicago actress Morgan Taylor is thrilled to get an audition for a major production of a play, not quite as happy to find that she is paired for the audition with aging, not-very-talented Lily London, very unhappy when Lily doesn't show and she has to read with a monotone stagehand--and hysterical when she discovers Lily London, dead, in the ladies' room afterwards.

Her unhappiness knows no bounds when her best friend Beth, suffering from multiple sclerosis and the unexpected heir of Lily's unsuspected millions, becomes the prime suspect. When Morgan lands the part she auditioned for and her understudy is killed with the same poison that killed Lily, Morgan knows she has to find the answer before she is the next victim--and before Beth is arrested.

Cryoburn (Vorkosigan Saga #14), by Lois McMaster Bujold (author), Grover Gardner (narrator)

Blackstone Audiobooks, ISBN 9781441747464, October 2010

Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan is once again in his favorite situation--in the midst of a major mystery, with people trying to kill him or exploit him. This time, he's on the planet Kibou-daini, checking out the cryocorps--corporations that freeze corpses for future revival when their medical conditions are curable--because one of them is attempting to expand its franchise to Komarr.

This is a fun Miles romp, through a planet where the dead aren't dead, at least they're not supposed to be, and they still vote--or rather, the corporations that hold their contracts and their proxies do, on their behalf. When political activists dedicated to equal cryo rights for the poor discover that some of those voting cryocorpses may be real corpses, due to a covered-up failure of cryo fluid a generation ago, the cryocorp responsible has a major secret to hide, and a powerful reason to make people disappear. Meanwhile, other activists want to simply burn all the cryocorpses, and let their property pass to their descendants.

The Friday Night Knitting Club (Friday Night Knitting Club #1), by Kate Jacobs (author), Carrington MacDuffie (narrator)

Blackstone Audiobooks, ISBN 9781433201813, August 2007

Georgia Walker had her heart broken in her mid-twenties, and has spent the intervening thirteen years raising her daughter Dakota alone. She's built a successful small business, running a yarn shop, Walker and Daughter, and is starting to build a small reputation as a designer of elegant knit clothing. To her own surprise, as socially withdrawn as she has been since the break-up with Dakota's father, she has recently started a Friday night knitting group in her shop, and has started to regard this odd collection of women as friends.

Then Dakota's father, James, comes back from France, a successful architect, and wants to be involved in Dakota's life. That's hard enough for Georgia to accept; she's never really gotten over the feelings of pain and betrayal from James' sudden departure from her life just when she thought they'd be starting a family together.