Audiobook Review: Borderline by Joseph Badal

 

 

 

 

 

About the Audiobook

Author: Joseph Badal

Narrator: Pamela Almand

Length: 8 hours 40 minutes

Publisher: Suspense Publishing⎮2016

Genre: Police Procedural; Mystery

Series: Lassiter/Martinez Case Files # 1

Release date: May 17, 2016

 

Synopsis: Barbara Lassiter and Susan Martinez, two New Mexico homicide detectives, are assigned to investigate the murder of a wealthy Albuquerque socialite. They soon discover that the victim, a narcissistic borderline personality, played a lifetime game of destroying people’s lives. As a result, the list of suspects in her murder is extensive.

The detectives find themselves enmeshed in a helix of possible perpetrators with opportunity, means, and motive – and soon question giving their best efforts to solve the case the more they learn about the victim’s hideous past.

Their job gets tougher when the victim’s psychiatrist is murdered and DVDs turn up that show the doctor had serial sexual relationships with a large number of his female patients, including the murder victim.

 

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It’s been a while since I’ve heard a police procedural and I absolutely loved this one. Having two well written female lead detectives was a breath of fresh air. Creative, fascinating characters you like to get know better if they were real. The story itself was a powerful one given the subject material; and the way that Joseph Badal tells it only leaves you wanting to more.

 

 

NARRATOR PERFORMANCE:

• Narrated by: Pamela Almand

 

• Narrator-Story Connection:  

The way that Pamela Almand narrates makes it easy to enter right into the story. I think those who narrate books have an extremely difficulty task. They not only have to read and portray a cast of characters with distinct voices, accents, but also learn how to tell the story in the process. Pamela Almand has done just that.  When she narrates you have the sense she’s completely enveloped in the story.

 

• Voice Creation/Switch Over:  

The list of accents was superb. The voices of Barbara and Susan were quite entertaining!

 

• Pacing 

Almand is a pleasure to listen to.  The pacing is spot on.

 

• Emphasis 

Exceptional.  It was almost like watching a hit TV series from the 90’s. I’m still not sure how all the good narrators do it.

 

• Reader-Story Connection  

I was completely sucked into this book. Hook, line, and sinker.

 

• Sound Quality: 

Publisher:   Suspense Publishing

The recording volume was great as opposed to some other audiobooks. Almands voice fills up the sound booth very well.

 

• Overall Performance: 

I’ve never heard of Pamela Almand before this—but now I’m a fan. She has a great voice worthy listening to and her skill is clearly evident.

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the Author: Joseph Badal

Joseph Badal is the author of 13 suspense novels: Borderline & Dark Angel (Lassiter/Martinez Case Files series); Evil Deeds, Terror Cell, The Nostradamus Secret, The Lone Wolf Agenda, Death Ship, & Sins of the Fathers (The Danforth Saga); The Motive & Obsessed (The Curtis Chronicles); and stand-alones The Pythagorean Solution, Shell Game, & Ultimate Betrayal.

All of his books draw on personal experiences and historical events. Joe has been judged “One of the 50 Authors You Should Be Reading” and has received 3 Gold Medals and 2 Silver Medals from the Military Writers Society of America, and The Tony Hillerman Award for Best Fiction Book of the Year in 2014 and 2016. He also writes a blog titled Everyday Heroes. See past postings at www.josephbadalbooks.com

You can read more about Joe at www.josephbadalbooks.com and email him at josephbadalbooks@aol.com

 

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About the Narrator: Pamela Almand

The daughter of a cattle rancher, Pam Almand grew up in the tiny town of Brush, Colorado. Her dad, a former Air Force fighter pilot, sparked her interest in flying, and after graduating Colorado State University in 2 1/2 years with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, Pam took a flying lesson “just for fun.”

That first lesson turned into a lifelong passion, and one month later she had her Private Pilot’s License. Though there were no female pilots in the airline industry at that time, she set that as her career goal. In 1976, Pam started a small aircraft ferry service to build flight time and in that capacity, delivered new and used aircraft all over the world, including two-seat Cessna 150s she flew solo across the Atlantic!

Pam was the first woman flight test pilot for Cessna Aircraft Company’s multi-engine turbo-prop and jet division and eventually became the company’s national spokeswoman for their Learn To Fly programs.

Her dream was finally realized when she was hired by Northwest Airlines and began a career which spanned the globe, on aircraft from the Convair 580 all the way to captain of the Boeing 747 flying Asia and Europe routes. Pam had over 25,000 hours of flight time at retirement two years ago.

She is a past director of the International Society of Women Airline Pilots and organized conferences for that group in Bangkok and Fort Worth. She is a member of the Ninety-Nines, Experimental Aircraft Association, and the Air Line Pilots Association.

When arthritis and multiple joint replacements curtailed her flying, she started a company as a professional voice actor. Appearing in a national Tylenol commercial in 1995 sparked her interest and The Captain’s Voice was the result. She is now an award-winning SAG/AFTRA narrator and voiceover talent and has done commercials, videogames, e-learning, audiobooks, and phone messaging for clients including Microsoft, Brilliance Audio, Johnson & Johnson, Audible, La Costa Resort, Jet Blue, Delta Airlines, Dell, Blackstone Publishing, the American Red Cross, Canadian Realtors…all the way to being the English voice for The Hotels and Casinos of Monte Carlo!

She was nominated for an Audie Award for her 5th audiobook narration (Come To Me Alive, by Leah Atwood) and went on to also earn a Voice Arts Award for non-fiction for In Movement There Is Peace, by Elaine and Joseph Foster; another Voice Arts nomination for Cyber Crisis: It’s Personal Now, by William Kieper; and recently was awarded an Earphones Award by AudioFile Magazine for Husbands and Other Sharp Objects, by Marilyn Simon Rothstein for Brilliance Audio.

She has served on the board of several charities, including Patrons of the HeArts and local Beaches Emergency Assistance Ministries (BEAM) and lives with her husband Amos in Atlantic Beach. Pam plays piano for her local church, still returns to Telluride, Colorado every summer, loves biking, golf, hiking, and-though she’s been all over the globe!- she still counts world travel among her most-loved hobbies.

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