Review: THIS CASE IS GONNA KILL ME

This Case Is Gonna Kill Me by Phillipa Bornikova
Read by Therese Plummer
Book 1 of Linnet Ellery series
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: paperback, audiobook

About This Case Is Gonna Kill Me:

What happens when The Firm meets Anita Blake? You get the Halls of Power—our modern world, but twisted. Law, finance, the military, and politics are under the sway of long-lived vampires, werewolves, and the elven Alfar. Humans make the best of rule by “the Spooks,” and contend among themselves to affiliate with the powers-that-be, in order to avoid becoming their prey. Very loyal humans are rewarded with power over other women and men. Very lucky humans are selected to join the vampires, werewolves, and elves—or, on occasion, to live at the Seelie Court.

Linnet Ellery is the offspring of an affluent Connecticut family dating back to Colonial times. Fresh out of law school, she’s beginning her career in a powerful New York “white fang” law firm. She has high hopes of eventually making partner.

But strange things keep happening to her. In a workplace where some humans will eventually achieve immense power and centuries of extra lifespan, office politics can be vicious beyond belief. After some initial missteps, she finds herself sidelined and assigned to unpromising cases. Then, for no reason she can see, she becomes the target of repeated, apparently random violent attacks, escaping injury each time through increasingly improbable circumstances. However, there’s apparently more to Linnet Ellery than a little old-money human privilege. More than even she knows. And as she comes to understand this, she’s going to shake up the system like you wouldn’t believe….

Source: Info in the About This Case Is Gonna Kill Me was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9736493-this-case-is-gonna-kill-me on 18/10/2012.

My Thoughts:

The Narration:
I am not fond of books with too long a title. If this book didn't have Therese Plummer's name attached to it, I would never have bought it. I am obviously an old Therese Plummer fan, that usually means that the narrator would rate a 5 out of 5 even before I started listening to the audiobook. But I have learned that nice though her voice is, she is the kind of reader who is not for all genres. I don't think her personality fits this book at all. I find Therese Plummer's too soft-hearted-seeming voice to fit a bespectacled librarian more, than a kick-ass lawyer. Or it could also be that I've listened to her as Aurora "Roe" Teagarden too long and my brain associates her voice with Roe already, that it is having a hard time switching from Roe to Linnet. Or more likely, I do not agree with her interpretation of this book. Nevertheless, her voice is still as nice as it ever was so although I cannot give her a 5 out of 5 anymore with this book, I cannot give her a less than 4 either.

The Book:
The world building is fantastic! I would love to read more of Linnet's world! It got all my favourite fantasy elements in it. Vampires, werewolves and elves with ipads and smartphones! Hah! Can't beat that combined with fantastic story telling quality!! Though I admit it kinda started slow for me that I abandoned it after chapter one and picked up another book.

[Image Credit: Lintufriikk]

But it did pick up and it was smashing fights and impossible odds and running for their lives until the end. Fab! I have one complaint though, the fight scenes are not very realistic.

So an elf and a werewolf were duking it out mano-mano and the werewolf does not use his sharp claws on his enemy to draw blood?

That scene is not very likely. And that is not the only close-combat fight scene that needed polishing up. But I choose to ignore those little nitpicking issues given the wonderful listening time I got out of the book. And at the end of it, I enjoyed this book and wondering when the second Linnet Ellery book is gonna come out...?

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4
Character development = 4
Story itself = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 4
Pace = N/A (9 hrs and 22 mins listening time)
Plot = 4.5
Narrator = 4.5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries