One Wrong Word by Hank Phillippi Ryan @HankPRyan @grshalan @MacmillanAudio

the setup…
Arden Ward is a highly successful crisis management expert working for a top tier company. That is until her boss and mentor finds her expendable when he has to choose between a client’s misguided accusation and supporting her. As if that’s not bad enough, he forces her to take on a client or face being blackballed as she goes out the door. It’s the highest profile case currently on the front pages and the wife of the recently acquitted man who was accused of causing a traffic fatality while inebriated wants her help to rehabilitate their reputation. Arden takes the case but things go sideways almost from the start.

the heart of the story…
Arden was hired by Cordelia Bannister but it’s husband Ned who’s at the center of the controversy. Was he really guilty or the victim of an over zealous prosecutor? Did he really not know the victim or was there a prior relationship as someone is anonymously insinuating? It doesn’t take long for Arden to not know who she can trust and your neck will get sore from the constant whiplash of the back and forth about it. I’ve never experienced so many unreliable narrators in one story and I kept screaming at Arden to just run!

the narration…
I enjoyed Shalan’s storytelling approach because she wasn’t giving a thing away in her performance. I kept listening for a hint as to who might be lying but she gave each character a straight face. It was an exceptional delivery.

the bottom line…
It took most of the story for me to develop a strong supposition and I came really close. It was a tangled, delicious web of lies, half truths and subterfuge like I’ve rarely experienced. Arden has a keen mind and even when she doubted herself, kept her wits about her. This was a gnarly puzzle that gave me brain cramps on occasion but was highly entertaining. What a great ride and even better on audio.

Book Info

• Release Date: February 6, 2024
• Narrator: Gail Shalan
• Audio Length: 12 hours, 28 minutes
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio

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(Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for my complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.)