Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy of the audiobook, for my honest review.

I like the author Cole Baxter, so I thought I would try another book! Prime Suspect seemed to drag on with me wanting to know what happened at the end, so that the book would end. All the characters seemed to get on my nerves in different ways. It wasn't as thrilling as I thought it could be.

3.75 ⭐ rounded up.

Laurie has been abused by husband, Devon, for years. One encounter lands her in the emergency room and she's pronounced dead. When she wakes up in the morgue she sees a good opportunity to get out of her marriage by faking her own death. Luckily she finds a nice couple to help her stay off the radar. But when there's a mysterious fire at Devon's house, Laurie is brought out of hiding.
Blake is a former detective, turned private investigator. He is hired to prove who set the fire ~ with Laurie as the prime suspect .

I love that it was written from dual pov of Laurie and Blake. Laurie starts off weak, but grows stronger as the story unfolds. Blake is a bit of a mess after losing his partner and lover, Lola and I am not sure if he was sober for any part of the book.
Mario and Belinda were nice supportive characters.

Good~ish narration by Wayne Mitchell & Gail Shalan. They do perfectly fine in their normal voice, but I was just not feeling when they try to speak in opposite sex tones. Gail did a slightly better job though.

Overall this was a decent thriller, but not too memorable. This is my first time with this author and I'd give him a go again.

*Thanks to Netgalley, Dreamscape Media LLC and Cole Baxter for the advanced audiobook. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review*

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. Story was decent. Don't really have any complaints. Easy and fast read/listen to.

Prime Suspect by Cole Baxter is the second book by the author that I have listened to. I really enjoyed the twists the author wrote in this story. The narrators both were excellent and added to my enjoyment. I could visualize so many details. The dual POV was easy to follow. Wayne Mitchell and Gail Shalan both brought the characters to life. I was intrigued by the blurb for this book and enjoyed it. The final twist was great. Thank you #NetGalley and #Dreamscape Media for allowing me to listen to this pre-release audiobook.

This was my first Cole Baxter novel, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. There was quite a bit of suspense throughout, but a little too much “back-from-the-dead” that kept me side-eyeing the storyline. I didn’t find any of the characters overly engaging, but they were interesting enough to want to keep reading to the end. The story wrapped up nicely, and I enjoyed the final few chapters.

Thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher for early access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was not a huge fan of this book.
I never really bonded with any of the characters, especially the lead male who was always pouring alcohol down his throat when he was supposed to be being productive. I also didn’t like the fact that he kept driving drunk and with more than just himself in the car. The main female character was whiny and clingy. The story was all over the place, and had too much non-important romantic aspects that were cringeworthy.
I have read one other of this author books, but I forgot all about it until after reading this, and I didn’t like that one either. If I would’ve known that before reading this then I would’ve skipped it all together.

Also noteworthy: The voice of the male narrator was god awful! I mean, when he was just doing his regular voice it wasn’t terrible, but when he did the voice of any other male, or any voice of a female, they just sounded like angry and condescending jerks. In fact, the Voice he used for women sounded like an angry, bossy, know it all 90 year old who smoked four packs a day. It was pure awfulness. Having said that, even if I would have read the book without the narrator, it wouldn’t have changed how I felt about the story.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for leaving an honest review.

I very much enjoyed Prime Suspect. The characters were well developed and believable. The trauma that the main character, Laurie, endured from her husband, Devon, was both abusive and unbearable. When he choked her out apparently killing her, and then she came back to life, I had high hopes for her. I wished for complete healing for her. Mario and Belinda, the people who nursed her back to health, were a godsend. Their kindness was just what the doctor ordered.

Just when things for Laurie were on the up swing, Devon, who had been declared dead in a house fire, shows up at her hotel room and all havoc breaks out. But to her credit and to his determent, she overcame her fear and lashed out against him. She stabbed him, and he fled in horror. She tried to follow him to finish the job but couldn't keep up with him. It didn't matter. He was finished off by another.

Blake, Laurie's new love interest, was assigned to the case to determine who killed Devon the first time. He initially suspected Laurie, but later revised that suspicion deciding that Devon was still alive, and determined to kill him.

Devon's parents had hired Blake to lay the blame on Laurie, as they hated her. When Blake decided that Devon was still alive, he went to his parents to ream them for the way they had raised Devon and for the horrible things he'd done to his wife. They virtually fired him. When Blake learned about Devon attacking Laurie, he went to the Whitman's home once more in hopes of gaining more information about Devon, he got what he was looking for.

This story was somewhat suspenseful which suited me just fine. In the end, when Blake and Laurie went to Bermuda, I somehow expected Devon to again rise from the dead and show up there. I was happily mistaken. Thank you NerGalley for this book. I really liked it.

Thrillers are my jam, and majority of the books I read are mystery/thriller/suspense, so it takes a crazy book to throw me off and this one just didn’t do it for me. I thought it seemed wordy. I feel like it could have been shorter and still given the same effect to the final twist and ending. I could connect with the main character, which made the story more interesting even with it being wordy. I am really taking a liking to audiobooks because I can still "read" while cleaning or doing other things, and I really liked the narrators for this story. I felt as if they acted their character perfectly. It was easy to follow between the "two story lines" of the deceased wife and the suspect, her husband. I enjoyed their enthusiasm throughout, but I just feel like it was too drawn out. However, the twist at the very end got me, I didn’t expect it at all. Overall, it was an enjoyable book, with some interesting twists just too drawn out.

I made it 6% before quitting because of the explicit description of the sexual acts. The Audi quality was excellent, and both narrators seemed to perform their characters well, but I cannot comment on the rest of the book.

Mystery and thrills will keep you listening to find out what happens next.
An abused wife who ends up in the morgue after been pronounced dead in the hospital, but is she really dead? Her body disappears and now the police think that it was all a setup when after a fire of her house they find some remains of her husband. Who do you turn to for help?
She doesn’t trust the police but a determined private eye starts to believe in her story which put them both in danger.
If you like psychological thrillers with a lot of twist get this book; I think you really enjoy it.

This one wasn’t my favorite, but still enjoyable. I connected with the main characters enough to carry me through some of the repetition. There were some interesting twists throughout, but overall it felt quite wordy and could’ve been shorter while still carrying out the plot well. I did really enjoy the narrator & thought she did a great job.

3 stars

I really need to do a better job at making sure I stop reading thrillers/mysteries that feature cops as (co-)protagonists; I’m just not going to enjoy them the way others might. The story and characters here were okay; I figured out one of the early twists and had suspicions about the ending, so there wasn’t much suspense. It was also another book where I felt like the final scenes/epilogue were a bit drawn-out, unnecessary, and/or underwhelming. Also, since this review is for an audio version of the text, I’ll add that I absolutely hate the way some male narrators try to read female voices; the way the male narrator here voiced the female protagonist really grated on my nerves.

Maybe I’m just in a critical mood at the moment…I’ll revisit this review if other relevant points occur to me in the future. For now, I can say that I didn’t love or hate the story and that I would be willing to give another book from this writer a shot.

The storyline was pretty good. It took me a little while to figure out who did it while I was listening to each clue that kept showing up. I enjoyed the different perspectives. Overall, I liked the book

Prime Suspect by Cole Baxter

I liked the book but the end part was a bit dumb for me with Laurie Whitman mother in law suing Blake this could have been left out completely it did not make the story better it felt like it was an after thought to make the book longer and the story could of standout on its own without it.

Laurie Whitman was being abused by her husband Devon. The story starts off by telling us about the domestic abuse and then Laurie finds herself on her death bed in the hospital because the abuse went to far. Is Laurie dead? Is Devon dead? This is an interesting story but like I said above some things are unnecessary. I did like the character Blake he was a decent human being even though he had some personal flaws.

I rated this book 3.5 stars it would of been higher if the unnecessary stuff was left out. I enjoyed the narrators. I would read more of Cole Baxter's books in the future but make sure unnecessary plot pieces stay out. I would have rated it a 4 without the added stuff.

I want to thank Netgalley and Dreamscape Audio for the free version of the book.

After reading starting a different book by this author I have decided that it is on my best interest to not go forward with this review either.

Laurie Whitman flees from her husband after he chokes her during an intimate encounter. When her husband subsequently dies in a fire, she returns and becomes the face of all women who have suffered from domestic violence….until the fire is deemed arson, and then she becomes a celebrity for a different reason. I had a hard time connecting with Laurie, she came across and shallow, one dimensional. The narrators did not help, with mispronounced words and a rather robotic rendition

This is only the second book by Cole Baxter. What drew me in was the title and the book cover. When the story opens, we meet Laurie Whitman, a battered wife who was pronounced dead in the hospital. She then wakes up alive in the morgue surprising Dr. Mario Grace who was about to perform an autopsy on her. She didn’t want to be found especially by the man who put her there…her husband, Devon. So, Dr. Grace and his wife decide to keep her safe until she is ready to resurface. While recuperating under their care, Devon is killed in a house fire. This is odd because Devon was once a firefighter and a fire safety advisor. We then meet Blake, an ex-police officer turned a private detective, who is hired by an anonymous person to find out what happened and keep it out of the press. The problem is Blake drinks too much and is still mourning the loss of his partner and lover, Lola who was shot in the line of duty. Blake now has to work with his friend Sam from the Seattle police force who has a new partner, Anna to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Meantime her home burns down with her hubby in it. Blake a PI, another damaged person, is hired to look into his death and find out if Laurie had anything to do with it. He doesn't know who is paying him. The case came via an old police friend.
Baxter did a good job telling the story from Laurie’s and Blake’s POVs as well as showing them as broken people who eventually got together. I found the twists in the story about Devon and his family interesting as they helped to shed light on his character. Really slow burn in terms of the pace of the story there is some repetition.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publisher for the opportunity.

Thank you Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for an audio-ARC in exchange for an honest review. IYKYK, my reviews are ALWAYS honest.

Okay, I gave this a strong 2 hours before giving it. But full disclaimer, I WANT TO READ THE BOOK. My gripe with this was purely the narrators. The story kept me going, but the narration being insufferable for me. I will wait until the book is released and pick it back up.

I especially did not like the male narrator. The book is set in Seattle, but all the male characters voices are distinctly Southern. It's confusing. I felt like I was listening to a book about the wild, wild west. Bad choice of male narrator given the setting of the book. The female narrator was really depressing. Maybe this is intentional because the book is depressing? But she was depressing to the point it was annoying.

Like I said, I still want to read this book because the plot itself is very interesting. Unfortunately this audio version was a fail to me, but by no fault of the author. That's why I'm giving in 3 stars.