4 audio books to savor this fall

Looking for an intriguing audio book as the weather turns chilly? Here are some high-caliber mysteries.

2. 'Tamarack County,' by William Kent Krueger

Read by David Chandler

Recorded Books, available as a library edition, or as a rental from www.recordedbooks.com, or as a download from www.audible.com; 9 CDS

The  13th in a series featuring Cork O’Connor, a former sheriff and current investigator in Tamarack County, Minnesota, this novel does a decent job as a stand-alone mystery because Krueger gives us backstory and old histories in a fluid manner.

O'Connor is an intriguing ethnic mixture of Ojibwe and Irish, which realistically reflects the mixed heritage so often found in northern Minnesota. A single dad whose children become embroiled in this gripping story of murder and revenge, O’Connor uses both his smarts and his spirituality to find the truth in a dark and ugly series of crimes. Chandler has a commanding manner and a slightly raspy, deep voice that easily carries this story. Instead of employing different accents or vocal personalities, he successfully changes his tone and pacing for different characters.  Grade: B+

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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