I've never read a Walter Mosley book before and he's supposed to be good, so I picked this one up for a driving-around book. The characters and plot seem OK, though they skirt close to generic lowlifes at times, everyone suspect, everyone with mixed motives, everyone a similar shade of gray.But the reason I abandoned this book two CDs in was the god-awful audiobook narrator, one Mirron Willis. He has a very liquid voice, in the disturbing sense of audible lip-smackings and saliva movements—OK, so maybe some listeners like that? But his accents are inconsistent, unrealistic, and incompetent; his women are all breathy whisperers; and he regularly overpronounces and mispronounces words (I caught "Paul Klee," "zazen," and "satrap"). These are all inexcusable mistakes, and if a professionally-qualified narrator makes them anyway, then his or her producer should find and correct them.It got to the point where I was wincing in anticipation of the narration rather than paying attention to the story, and that's when I gave up. I'll probably try another Mosley at some point, but I will never again subject myself to narration by Mirron Willis.
