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Reviewed by Katelyn Hensel for Readers' Favorite
Chris Culver is one of the new greats in suspense and thriller fiction. The Abbey explodes onto the scene in delightful audio book format to the enjoyment of suspense fans everywhere.
Meet Detective Ash Rashid. He's a cynical and jaded homicide detective with no desire to see ANY more dead bodies for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, they seem to follow him everywhere, and one of his worst fears comes to life when his niece's body is discovered in the home of one of the elite of the city. Ash is NOT amused by the coroner's diagnosis of an overdose and starts an illegal investigation to find who or what he believes is his niece's killer.
What I loved most was the originality of the character in Ash. Because he is a Muslim cop and a kind of multi-cultural character, he had many dimensions that are lacking in typical "white-bread" cop characters. I learned a lot of cool things about Muslims that I never knew, and I had a great time learning about Ash's strengths, but more importantly his weaknesses. I would have liked even more character development, but I suspect that is coming in the next book of the series: The Outsider. There was some kind of odd vampire thing tied into the plot that I didn't really understand, but it kind of worked with the story itself.
As for the audio, the narrator was pretty great. I loved the clarity of voice and the diction and flow of speech patterns. It did get a tad dry at times, but overall I thought the voice quality was exceptional, especially for a crime-ish kind of novel.
